


I'll spread my wings (and I'll learn how to fly)

by maidenstar



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Slow Burn, also so much rosita/jeremy/waverly friendship, literally just fluff almost 0 angst, much communicating over email/text/facetime as they gradually fall in love, student!waverly and trainee!nicole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maidenstar/pseuds/maidenstar
Summary: '“So are we not supposed to be asking who’s got you smiling down at your phone like that?” Jeremy asks.“If you mean the person who's been helping me get the last of my thesis documentation, then you're way off base...I mean, I'm happy they’re so helpful and all, but we’re keeping it pretty profesh,” Waverly says, ignoring that voice in the back of her head:liar liar liar.'Waverly Earp is a stressed History PhD student grappling with an unfulfilling relationship, a MIA sister, and that greatest evil of all: primary source procurement. Nicole Haught is a trainee cadet in Ottawa, banished to the college archive after she injures herself in the field.When Waverly contacts the Ontario Police College to request access to their archival materials, she's not really expecting anything more from the person on the other end than document retrieval. She’s definitely not expecting a long-distance connection, or friendship, or more...(Or, the one where they're miles apart and they still fall in love anyway).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, if I'm being totally honest - I didn't really expect to find myself back here! It's been a while since I last published a fanfic, and I haven't written anything along these lines since then. But then I started watching Wynonna Earp last month and within literally a couple of weeks had fallen for wayhaught (well, that happened instantaneously), had booked my place at earpercon, and had started about three fanfics. Oops! 
> 
> So I'm pretty nervous publishing this as it's not really my usual style and I've not published any writing in a long time - so please be gentle with me! This was honestly supposed to be a short(ish) 5k oneshot, and has since grown into a life of its own at around 23k and just a wee tiny scooch away from being done. I'll probably keep it to three parts all told. 
> 
> As always when I write, I value feedback more than anything so if you have a moment to leave a comment or kudos then it would be very much appreciated. If you prefer other means, I don't use my [tumblr](http://jillianholtzsmann.tumblr.com/) much anymore, but you're very likely to find me on twitter as [angiemartineIIi](https://twitter.com/angiemartineIIi).
> 
> If a corresponding moodboard is your thing, then this can be found [here](https://twitter.com/angiemartineIIi/status/902349863593136128) or [here](http://jillianholtzsmann.tumblr.com/post/164733455178/).

**_i._ **

**_March 2017; Purgatory, Alberta_ **

 

 

One thing they never tell you as a prospective history student is that procuring the necessary source material is at some point going to become a massive ballache.

Well, it’s one of a few things they never tell you which include - but are not limited to - the pitiful amounts of contact time with your tutors (seriously _what_ are the fees actually for?), and the number of sleepless nights you’ll spend deliriously trying to squeeze 100 years of history into 2,500 words. Including footnotes.

(Oh, and historiography is _not_ your friend).

That’s not to say that Waverly’s passion for the subject has ever been in question, but sometimes navigating the minutiae of actually getting her doctorate becomes slightly tedious.

Especially the source material.

She has, at least, collected much of the documentation for her doctoral thesis throughout her undergrad and masters years, but she still finds herself trawling through the university library and various online archives with her fingers crossed that they’ll have what she needs. When they don’t, document delivery is an alternative; costly enough that it eats away at her bartending tips more or less entirely.

Just once, she would like to go grocery shopping without calculating how many article entries a dairy-free chocolate bar or tub of ice cream would cost.

The other alternative is begging. Museum and academy archives are suckers for some good ol’ fashioned grovelling.

Then again, she’s pretty sure her uncle would cover every cost her studying incurred if she asked him nicely enough, which is why she keeps a lot of her financial matters as far from Curtis and Gus as possible. They took her and Wynonna in when there was no one else, and they’d been doing their best to support them ever since. Even as a kid, it hadn’t escaped Waverly’s notice and for as long as she’d been old to enough to earn money, she’d tried to make her own way. If that meant pulling every shift Shorty could offer her, then so be it. But even when her tips _were_ sufficient to cover the cost of buying old documents, it didn’t always mean she could find the ones she most needed.

When she’d submitted her proposed thesis title (“Wyatt Earp and the Legacy of Law-Keeping in the Old West, 1850 to the present day”), her prospective tutor had warned her in one of their frustratingly infrequent meetings that it was going to be a tall ask to get hold of all the sources she’d need. A lot of the old legal documents were squirreled away in police archives across two countries and some deputies could be cagey about handing them over.

But Waverly was nothing if not dogged, and was rarely discouraged from anything she set her mind to. She persisted and her advisor, apparently sufficiently reassured by Waverly’s tenacity, had signed off on her proposal going to the funding board. It helped too that she passed her preliminary exams and coursework requirements with flying colours. And, even in spite of her advisor’s scepticism, his report must have been good enough, because Waverly’s (albeit extremely limited) thesis funding had been approved, along with her sliver of desk space at the university’s History department.

(This effectively meant she spent most of her funding money on bus rides between Purgatory and the city, had to mark a lot of undergraduate papers, and sometimes filled in when qualified - and fully paid - tutors couldn’t make their own lectures).

Still, Waverly had to admit that her advisor had been right - every sheriff’s office she’d come up against thus far had been disinterested at best and downright unhelpful at worst. She had spent more hours than she cared to count trying to sweet-talk anyone from archives assistants to the Sheriffs themselves into letting her see copies of their more aged documentation.

There was, at least, a pretty decent rapport building up between her and UNM thanks to their famous Old West History programme, although Waverly suspected they might be trying to poach her - and her research - for their department. It was flattering, to say the least, but right now her home was in Purgatory and she wasn’t sure she was ready to change that quite yet. Still, she had _options_ and that was something.

 

 

 

 

 

_> From: Waverly Earp [mailto: waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca] _  
_> Sent: 23 March 2017 07:18 _  
_> To: Nedley, Randy  <randy.nedley@gov.ca>_  
_> Subject: Archival material _  
_> Attachment:  document release request.pdf _

_Hi Sheriff, I hope you’re well._

_I’m sorry to bother you again with more thesis requests but I’m trying to find a few sources on Wyatt Earp’s later life, and a few records on some Purgatory-based cases that took place just after his law-keeping days came to an end._

_I don’t suppose any of these files are in the archive are they?_

_Thanks for all your help – next time you’re in Shorty’s there will be a beer waiting for you._

_Waverly_

 

 

_> From: “Nedley, Randy”  <randy.nedley@gov.ca> _  
_> Sent: 23 March 2017 16:34 _  
_> To: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material _

_Hello Waverly,_

_I've had a look and unfortunately the documents you want were moved after that water leak back in 2011. They did a stint at a museum in Montreal, but as far as I’m aware they're currently in storage at the Police College in Ontario. Speak to one of the archivists there. If you're lucky they might let you see them. Sorry not to be of more help._

_You know by now there's no beer necessary. Please give my regards to your aunt and uncle for me._

_Regards,_

_RANDY NEDLEY_  
_SHERIFF_  
_PURGATORY SD_  
_STATION 62, 2004 - 20TH STR_

 

 

_> From: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Sent: 24 March 2017 00:40 _  
_> To: Nedley, Randy  <randy.nedley@gov.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material _

_Hi Sheriff,_

_Thanks again for your help, I’ll give OPC a try and keep my fingers crossed. Gus says to let you know you're welcome round at their place for a cup of coffee and a slice of pie whenever you'd like (I’m biased but her chocolate pie is the best!)_

_Waverly_

 

 

 

 

 

Waverly, of course, delivers on her promise of a free beer for Nedley and he, of course, accepts after a cursory refusal. He has a pretty well-established routine of calling into Shorty’s most evenings, assuming his shifts aligned. She knows it’s his way of keeping up with the goings on of the town and it seems to serve him pretty well. She chats with him for a time, filling him in on her research although she senses he mostly asks out of courtesy. Still, it’s nice that he does - outside of Gus and Curtis, very few others take an interest in that side of Waverly’s life.

They speak until a scuffle breaks out in the corner of the bar, the first of the night, and Nedley slinks off with a sigh to gently calm things down. Once a few patrons have exited with their tails temporarily between their legs (Waverly knows full well they’ll be back within the hour), Shorty relieves her, so that she can pick at some food and have a quick break.

From across the room Champ calls her over and asks her if she wants to watch him play pool.

She doesn’t especially, but she goes anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

_**JC** : How goes the hunt for elusive source material? _  
_**WE** : don’t even speak to me about it. _  
_**JC** : Can’t relate :) _  
_**RB** : :) :) :) _  
_**WE** : tfw you hate smug science grads _  
_**JC** : Right because we have it soooo easy _  
_**RB** : yeah nothing has ever gone wrong in any experiment I’ve ever done. Ever. _  
_**WE** : that’s my point _  
_**WE** : smug science grads _  
_**RB** : anyway more importantly, are you coming to the mixer next weekend? _  
_**WE** : more important than whether i have essential thesis documents? _  
_**RB** : obviously?? because I’m having pre-wine wine at my place... _  
_**WE** : idk, i’m not sure if i can take the time off work _  
_**JC** : Waverly… _  
_**RB** : :eye-roll emoji: _  
_**RB** : dude, pls… _  
_**WE** : fine. i can’t /justify/ taking the time off work _  
_**RB** : to be fair though, the place would actually burn down if you weren’t there Waves. _  
_**JC** : Na na na naaaa super-barmaid! Never off duty!!! _  
_**WE** : i literally hate both of you sfm. _

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_**ii. March 2017; Ottawa, Ontario** _

 

Nicole Haught had all but dragged herself through high school and college with only one endpoint in sight: joining the police academy. Ever since she’d realised it was what she wanted, she’d vowed to do whatever it took to qualify as an officer. Even after all of the cautionary, disbelieving tales thrown at her - was she underestimating how hard it would be? Had she considered how she’d be treated as a woman on the force? What about the risks to her safety? - Nicole had never once wavered.

At eighteen she was youthfully unfazed, straining to cut the binds of high school and, admittedly, perhaps a little blasé about the sexism and the danger. Hard work, however, was something she became used to long before she became a cadet. College brought freedom and the chance to strike out on her own; it brought drinking buddies, girlfriends, and enduring friendships but it also brought hard work and long nights. She put herself through the three years it took her to graduate entirely on the back of two scholarships and three jobs, and joining the cadets after that had almost felt like a cakewalk.

She was smart enough to breeze through all the preliminary exams, healthy enough to ace the medical checkups, and - after years on her school and college soccer teams - athletic enough to pass the physical without breaking a sweat, almost literally.

So, although she was far from complacent, her past efforts hadn’t lead her to expect that her greatest mental obstacle might just be getting through a stint at the Academy’s archive.

This non-compulsory placement was well-regarded as the worst rotation an aspiring officer could spring and was helpful only in learning the correct paperwork procedure (essential, yes, but there surely had to be a better - and _shorter_ \- way to do so).

Nicole hadn’t signed up for the rotation, but rather it had chosen her.

A nasty fall in their latest physical had left an old achilles injury biting at her with every step, so she was ruled out of field work until the doctor gave her the say-so. She didn’t exactly relish the prospect of working in a freezing cold archive in late March while her peers were all out on much more interesting rotations, but she had passed all her compulsory training thus far with flying colours. An extra, voluntary (in theory) placement wouldn’t exactly look bad on her resumé when it came to actually getting hired. Which was something she and her fellow cadets would have to think about sooner rather than later, as their training was almost up.

For Nicole, this meant deciding exactly what she wanted out of being a police officer, and where she wanted to begin her working life. To date she had no idea. She had thought briefly about going home and living with her family again to save some money, and while the prospect wasn’t entirely terrible, Nicole hadn’t really taken to city policing as much as she had thought she would. In the back of her mind there was a strong draw to working in a smaller town, to actually getting a sense of community - of _belonging_ \- that was difficult to find in the inner city. Secretly, she carried an idyllic notion of being able to spend her days off hiking in the countryside and getting back to nature, as she had done when she was a child - before they had been forced to up sticks and move away.

Plus, she knew that there was no better time to move around a bit and see new towns while she was still very much single and unattached. The trouble was, with the world - or at least the country - as her oyster, Nicole had no idea where she really wanted to go.

She sighed, adjusting the position of her elbow on the desk and propping her head up in her hand as she sifted through a surprisingly small number of entry-level job listings. Even once she’d finished at the Academy, she’d still have a further six months of field training and shadowing left, and with resources stretched across the force at the moment, people weren’t always looking to hire rookies.

She clicks the ‘star’ icon next to a couple of listings to revisit, before giving a cursory check to her work inboxes; just under the pretense of doing something constructive. Not that it matters, since the archive manager - a short but terrifyingly officious man with a set of glasses that were entirely too small for his face - didn’t really seem to want Nicole around the archive any more than she really wanted to be there. Mostly, he shunted her out to reception, which suited Nicole just fine given that she could at least monitor the central radio. Plus, when it was dead she could update her government employee details, and prepare for her final written assessments and exams. This saved her trying to study at home, which was currently a dingy flat-share with a roommate that had no sense of either basic kitchen hygiene or of common human decency. His tactic _du jour_ to piss her off had been holding increasingly raucous “get togethers” to which Nicole was decidedly not invited.

She couldn't say she cared about not spending time in her flatmate’s pungent room smoking weed, drinking cheap beer, and playing video games but she'd had to start volunteering for night shifts so that she could sleep in the daytime when her unemployed flatmate did. At this stage, even moving doesn't seem feasible; with graduation only a few months away, she doubts she’ll be able to sign a new rent agreement for such a short amount of time.

So she's resigned herself to slogging it out. She's slogging it out at home and at the archive, not really sure where things are going at this stage but glad, at least, to have prospects.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_**iii. March 2017; Purgatory, Alberta** _

 

_> From: Waverly Earp [mailto: waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca] _  
_> Sent: 26 March 2017 07:18 _  
_> To: Enquiries  <enquiries@cpc.gc.ca> _  
_> Subject: Archival material request _  
_> Attachment:  document release request.pdf _

_Dear Sir/Madam,_

_I am emailing as a PhD student with the University of Calgary. My doctoral thesis in History concerns law-keeping across North America at the time of the Old West, and I have been advised by my local Sheriff’s Office that some non-confidential documentation I am searching for might be in your archive. Please find attached the relevant document release authorisation._

_I would be grateful if you contact me at your earliest convenience regarding this matter._

_Many thanks for your help._

_Kindest regards,_  
_Waverly Earp_

 

_> From: Enquiries  <enquiries@opc.gc.ca> _  
_> Sent: 26 March 2017 17:01 _  
_> To: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material request _

_Dear Ms Earp,_

_Thank you for your enquiry. Please be advised that your email has been forwarded as appropriate and a member of staff will be in touch within the next seven to ten working days._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Ontario Police College_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_**iv. April 2017; Calgary, Alberta** _

 

 

Grad mixers were, Waverly knew, important.

They were a good chance to network with other students and professors, to discuss your research, to make connections and, importantly, to drink a slightly inappropriate amount of wine. The faculties generally supplied the drinks for the disaffected professors that had to turn up, but by extension this was accessible to the students too, and the organisers certainly didn’t do things by halves.

Usually these events were restricted to single faculties or those with close ties, but occasionally the university put them through it and made them go to larger events.

Technically they were _cordially invited_ , but it was pretty frowned upon not to attend a minimum number and academia, Waverly was discovering, was at least 25% image. (Luckily, being an Earp in Purgatory was probably about 85% image, so she was well prepared).

Plus, the fancier mixers were a great excuse to get a little bit glammed up.

Oh, and did she mention the wine?

So really there was no reason that Waverly shouldn't be looking forward to a night out but, truly, she wasn't. She'd taken an earlier shift at Shorty’s to at least get a few hours of paid work in, and had caught the bus to the city early enough that she could get in a predrink or two.

But her mind was elsewhere, buzzing like a hive and full of distractions. Mostly, she had a large bout of pre-deadline butterflies. Her mentor was expecting a solid draft of her current chapter in a pretty short timeframe and, with no sign that OPC had actually sent her email to a real human yet, Waverly was cutting it fine. This was not something she was accustomed to, and this kind of unpredictability was not something she enjoyed; she was never late and she never, ever missed a deadline.

She had tried to offload her worries by discussing things with Champ earlier, but just as well have not bothered. Either he didn’t understand why Waverly worried so much about her education, or he simply didn’t care. He hadn’t looked up from his video games once while she spoke, and it had left her hurt and wondering - not for the first time - why she hadn’t simply cut things off already. The answer had something to do with that unpredictability issue Waverly had; Champ was nearly six years of stability and routine, and he was probably the only person in town who’d given her the time of day before her final year of high school. She wasn’t stupid enough not to know _why_ he’d given her that time - his teenaged, one-track mind had been depressingly stereotypical - but he’d been almost sweet, and earnest enough. Plus, it wasn’t like anyone else was even remotely interested in Waverly. But she’d also found a mystery pair of panties in the laundry basket earlier; they were decidedly not her own and much too small for Champ, and she didn’t really know if predictability was worth knowing he was probably playing away.

Ordinarily, this would be the kind of thing she’d talk to Wynonna about. Her sister’s almost cocksure brand of confidence, while at jarring odds with the doubts that ran beneath her surface, was entirely what Waverly needed at the moment to counteract her self-effacing tendencies. But contact with Wynonna didn’t seem to be an option right now, which capped off the unsavoury trifecta of Waverly Earp’s current pressing problems. She couldn’t help but worry at how things from Wynonna had been mostly radio silence since her last, turbulent visit to Purgatory. Sure, Wynonna went off the grid a lot, but this felt somehow different. Hell, Waverly didn’t even know which country her sister was in. She’d have talked to Champ about that too but there wasn’t really any point.

As she wends a now-familiar path through the city, Waverly knows that what this really means is that the mixer is well-timed, as she really needs a moment of, well, -

“ _Therapy time_!” Rosita trills as she opens the door to her apartment, a bottle of wine already uncorked and in one hand, two glasses impossibly clutched in the other whilst she also hooks a finger around the door handle.

From somewhere in the living room, Waverly hears Jeremy start up a sort of chant; “ _ther-a-py! Ther-a-py_!” and she can’t help it; for the first time in a while, Waverly Earp smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

Her friendship with Rosita and Jeremy was improbable at best, but somehow it worked well. There wouldn’t really have been much of a chance for Waverly to mix with two science PhDs, but the university bar scene at least provided a nice chance for social cohesion.

She’d been staying at university accommodation the December before last, delivering extra revision sessions for panicked and volatile first- and second-years in the throes of their finals, when one of the university’s unofficial social media pages had put out a desperate cry for experienced bar hands for the holiday season rush.

Happy at the chance to earn a bit of extra cash for Christmas, Waverly had answered the call last-minute. They’d seemed happy with her Shorty’s credentials, but Waverly had totally underestimated how different it would be to working in a busy student bar. She’d worked under Rosita’s supervision on her very first night and, through the bonding power of too many drunk students and a few unsavoury male barhands, they’d been firm friends by three am.

Rosita had been kind to Waverly when she was confronted with serving any drinks outside of her regular clientele’s pitchers of beer, tequila shots, or triple whiskeys. Despite being doubly stretched as supervisor, Rosita had helped Waverly to get the drinks right (at least, until the stage in the night when the students were so drunk they could barely say their orders, let alone taste which spirit Waverly put in their cola).

“How do you remember all this?” Waverly had asked in the blissful quiet after the students had been evicted, as Rosita had rattled off a list of common drinks while they collected glasses and wiped down the bar.

“I worked three years downtown in a fancy cocktail bar,” Rosita responded with a shrug that set her long, dark ponytail in motion. She glanced up when Waverly remained silent and immediately clocked the look on her face. “Don’t. You. Dare,” she’d warned, accentuating her point by stacking a glass between each word.

Waverly bit her cheek, but refrained. “Not a big fan of the ‘ _don’t you want me baby_ ’ joke, huh?”

“Not after you’ve heard it eight-hundred times,” Rosita responded, but her tone was light to let Waverly she can take a joke.

“That’s weirdly specific.”

“ _You’re_ weirdly specific.” Something in Rosita’s response had reminded Waverly so keenly of Wynonna and it was both comforting and slightly painful at the same time.

They had finished up their shift by talking mindlessly about their degrees; filling the other in on their research interests and the constraints of their work.

As they stepped out into the icy December air, Waverly dog-tired and not relishing her ten o’clock tutorial, Rosita had said,

“Hey, you did a good job tonight.” Waverly threw her a disbelieving look, which Rosita quickly dismissed. “No, seriously. It was your first night and it was painfully non-stop - I hope we didn’t put you off coming back? I know the guys are a bit - ” She faltered, trying to mix professionalism with honesty.

“Creepy?” Waverly offered unabashedly (one of them had ‘accidentally’ groped her ass three times that shift. Three!).

Rosita grinned, her breath a white fog between them. “I didn’t say anything.”

Waverly smiled wryly. “Sure, I’ll be back tomorrow night - someone has to do the whole ‘girl power’ thing with you.”

Rosita had laughed - a joyously infectious sound, it turned out - before walking with Waverly back to her accommodation and shrugging off Waverly’s concern that she’d have to spend the last ten minutes walking on her own.

“I can take care of myself,” she insisted and Waverly didn’t doubt it for a second. Still though, it was a ‘girls don’t let other girls walk around the city alone’ thing.

“If I give you my number will you just text to say you got back safe?”

Rosita had chuckled, fishing her phone out of her pocket and wrestling her first few fingers out of one glove so she could use the touchscreen. “If you wanted my number you just had to ask.”

“Oh God. No it’s not. I uh….I have a boyfriend! I’m uh -”

“Relax, I’m kidding. You’re much too cutesy to be my type.”

Waverly wasn’t sure if she should be offended or flattered, but Rosita said it like it was a positive thing and she took Waverly’s number and she texted her to say she got home safe.

A few days after that, she’d texted Waverly early one Sunday morning: “Worst. Shift. Ever. Need to rant with someone who’ll understand, so we’re going out for brunch today. I’ll buy. Meet me outside your building at like 11?”

The rest, as they said, was history.

 

 

 

 

 

(She and Rosita stay friends, long after finals season is over and Waverly’s normal routine back in Purgatory resumes. They meet for coffee dates at the one of the university cafes whenever Waverly is in the city, and eventually Waverly meets Jeremy by extension. He and Rosita weren’t natural friends by anyone’s imagination - least of all Waverly’s - but they have desks in the same building and they attend many of the same LGBT Soc meetups. Somehow, it just worked.

It worked, too, when they welcomed Waverly into their friendship. Three, as it turned out, didn’t have to be a crowd but, if it was, then their little crowd was definitely one of the good ones).

 

 

 

 

 

“Is anyone else super not pumped for tonight?” Jeremy asks from where he’s sprawled on the couch.

“ _Super_ super not pumped,” Waverly agrees, scrolling through Rosita’s music library indecisively.

“Well, I’m pumped for the wine and canapés,” Rosita adds, pointedly uncorking a second bottle as Waverly settles on _Marina and the Diamonds_. “And a night away from my goddamn failed experiment results,” she adds bitterly.

“Shit, they went wrong again?” Waverly asks with a sympathetic wince. Some of the finer details of Rosita and Jeremy’s work go over her head, but she had always liked science at school and enjoyed hearing about what they were studying. Rosita clearly isn’t in the mood to talk about it right now though, and just flashes Waverly a grimace instead as she pours three huge glasses of Pinot.

“Plus, not to bring the mood even further down, but the canapés sucked last time.” This from Jeremy, electing to ignore proper timing as per usual.

“Yeah but that was a smaller event, and if they’re free I’m gonna eat a hundred, I literally don’t care.”

Against her better judgement, Waverly accepts the wine Rosita hands her and settles back into a chair, letting her friends’ good-natured squabbling wash over her like warm summer rain. She had briefly entertained the notion of discussing her Champ and Wynonna worries while they got ready but, as the wine begins swimming pleasantly round her body, she decides that taking a night off from everything was the better option.

It was a sentiment she’d question a few hours later when the three of them stumble ungraciously from the mixer, all well over-served and giggly as they link arms to try and stay upright. Waverly is not well known for her ability to handle drink and, even though it could only be just after midnight, she feels suspended in the dark space between drunk and hungover. Her head is fuzzy and unfocused and yet, somewhere in amongst the blur of memories, the dull throb of a headache is already starting.

Rosita hails them a cab and Jeremy starts nodding off pretty much as soon as he straps on his seatbelt. Nestled cosily in the middle seat, Waverly lays her head on Rosita’s shoulder while the world sways sickeningly from side to side.

“My boyfriend’s cheating on me,” she mumbles without meaning to, words blending smoothly into one another and she’s surprised that Rosita even understands.

“What the hell?! What an ass...” Rosita goes off, all curse words and drunken indignation the way Waverly needs right now. She doesn’t stop even after they’ve dropped a bleary Jeremy off at his place and arrived back at Rosita’s apartment, as planned. She’s lost the thread of her insults by the time Waverly retrieves her overnight bag and heads for the bathroom, but it is appreciated nonetheless. Sober, she probably wouldn’t have been able to listen to all the mean things that had been said, but still half-drunk and in need of at least five glasses of water, it had been what she needed to hear.

Once ready for bed she flops, all uncoordinated heavy limbs, into bed while Rosita brushes her teeth and removes her makeup. Waverly checks her phone which is languishing on 4% (most of the battery drained on copious snapchats) but, if she squints and waits for her vision to focus, she can just make out a new email and checks the notification preview:

_nicole.haught@opc.ga.ca_  
_RE: Archival material request Dear Ms Ea-_

Waverly almost shouts with joy and is ready to check the email there and then, but Rosita - clad in flowery sleep shorts and a wooly cardigan - practically divebombs onto the space beside her, still drunk and laughing but clearly fast approaching the dreaded crash.

“No more phones,” she slurs, clumsily pushing the phone away from Waverly’s face. “M’switching the lights out. Need sleep now.”

Waverly sticks the phone on charge and leaves it on the bedside table; she’s already waited long enough and all she can think is “ _finally_ ”.

She sleeps like the dead, wondering as she nods off if things might start looking up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_**v. April 2017; Ottawa, Ontario** _

 

The only thing worse than sitting around at the archive, Nicole concludes, is rifling through countless boxes in the archive.

For her first week of the placement, there’d been mercifully little to do and while Nicole wasn’t usually one for wasting time, she was tired and sore enough to be glad of the rest. So, she’d received a grad student’s document release request with a glum sense of resignation and absolutely no idea of how to find what had been requested. She'd tried the shelves where she thought they should be and promptly turned up zilch.

At first, she’d thought it had been her woefully minimal training on the archiving system, because - as an unqualified member of staff - all she could do was issue the most basic of current-day records (usually for court cases, job applications, and background checks), whereas the ones requested were clearly really old. But it had turned out that the supervisor had about as much clue on the whereabouts of the paperwork as Nicole herself. In fact, the papers seemed to have been moved and then improperly filed upon their return. The database said the stuff was in the building but finding it would be a whole other ball game.

Which was why Nicole, as opposed to a trained archivist, was doing the grunt work; lugging heavy, dusty boxes around and rifling through the ones she was actually allowed to touch. So much for not being allowed to do any active work - by the end of each shift her foot was killing her about as much as if she was out in the field.

A week after she’d received the email, she’d been forced to send a response explaining as diplomatically as possible that they’d lost (well, _misfiled_ ) the material in question but that they were currently taking every effort to relocate it. The student’s response had been far from impressed, but still coolly cordial, and Nicole couldn’t say she blamed her. The archive kind of had one job and, in this instance, it had failed.

It had failed and, as a result, Nicole was suffering. Admittedly, from what little she knew the papers this student - Waverly Earp - wanted sounded pretty juicy, but a lot of this stuff was just so damn dull. For the umpteenth time that day she repacks and replaces an archive box, her search having been fruitless yet again. In truth, she thinks she might not even realise if she found the right documents. Unless the papers are very clearly labelled, she kind of only knows the bare bones of what they contain.

The thought plays at her mind as she removes the gloves she needs to wear and wrestles out another box, sneezing at the displaced dust, which has been playing hell with her allergies all night.

The clock on the wall tells her she only has a quarter of an hour before she clocks out, and she isn’t in the mood to start another search. Instead she unlocks the dormant computer and calls up her inbox.

She might hate this placement, but Nicole Haught was nothing if not thorough and she was damn well determined to be a good cop, whatever kind of investigations that entailed.

 

_> From: Haught, Nicole  <nicole.haught@opc.gc.ca> _  
_> Sent: 07 April 2017 00:47 _  
_> To: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material request _

_Dear Ms Earp,_

_I’m sorry to say that I can’t bring you any good news regarding your PhD material just yet. However I was wondering if you had any idea as to the contents of the records you have requested._

_I believe it will help me in my search if I know a little more about what I’m looking for, and if I can also rule out other documents more quickly._

_Apologies again for any inconvenience this may be causing you._

_Kind regards,_  
_Nicole_

_NICOLE HAUGHT_  
_POLICE CADET_  
_ONTARIO POLICE COLLEGE_

 

Nicole heads straight off to put her mug in the dishwasher, and is surprised to find she has an unread email upon her return. She hadn't expected anyone not on shift work to still be up, but she also doesn’t know too much about what writing a thesis entails, and wonders if Waverly Earp is up late writing.

 

_> From: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Sent: 07 April 2017 00:54 _  
_> To: Haught, Nicole  <nicole.haught@opc.gc.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material request _

_Dear Nicole,_

_Unfortunately I don’t know too much about the contents, which is why I was hoping to get my hands on them! They were referenced in a journal article I was reading, and then recommended to me when I spoke to the person who wrote the paper._

_I know they discuss quite a grisly and rather suspicious murder, committed sometime broadly around 1900. Wyatt Earp wasn’t involved in much of the investigation but he was consulted briefly so his name should appear. The murder victim was found with strange markings carved into their skin, and there was speculation at the time that it was linked to some kind of devil-worship (crazy, I know!)_

_That’s about all I’ve got, but let me know if I can tell you anything else. Thanks again!_

_Kindest regards,_  
_Waverly_

 

Nicole smiles to herself as she reads - now those are some documents she’d like to see. She bets the initial police reports are pretty wild, and vows to actually put some gusto into finding the papers tomorrow.

It was strange, really, that they weren’t filed correctly, given that the whole archive was a tightly run ship. The full-time archivists had checked all the obvious places first with no success, and it almost felt as though whoever had checked the papers out last hadn’t wanted them to be found again.

Interest piqued, she calls up the digitised log for the documents in question. Still feeling clumsy with the computer system, it takes her a while to find the tab with all the documents’ checkout history and when she finally gets to where she needs, she finds the whole file completely corrupted. There's no record whatsoever of when the documents were taken out, or by whom, only that they were received back at the archive again in October last year.

It all feels too coincidental but, as Nicole finally punches out, she has to admit that she’s probably seeing a case wherever she can, desperate as she is to get back in the field.

Before she leaves she sends off another quick email to Waverly Earp because it somehow feels rude not to -

 

_> From: Haught, Nicole  <nicole.haught@opc.gc.ca> _  
_> Sent: 07 April 2017 01:03 _  
_> To: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material request _

_Dear Ms Earp,_

_Thank you for this, I’m sure it’ll help me. It all sounds very interesting - you must be really enjoying your thesis._

_I will ensure I contact you as soon as I have any updates for you. In the meantime if there’s anything else we can help you with please do not hesitate to contact us._

_Kind regards,_  
_Nicole_

_NICOLE HAUGHT_  
_POLICE CADET_  
_ONTARIO POLICE COLLEGE_

 

Twice, Nicole almost removes the second line about the thesis, but without it the email seems curt and slightly dismissive. So she sends it as it is and hopes Waverly Earp is the kind of person who likes the friendly approach.

 

 

 

 

 

Shift work can really suck sometimes but the four days on, four days off system does have its perks. Namely, four consecutive days off work.

The only problem is that Nicole doesn’t always really know what to do with herself for such stretches of time. Her first priority is usually to try and readjust her sleeping pattern to something a bit more in line with the rest of society so, feeling grouchy and dog-tired, she forces herself out of bed at eight-thirty on her first day off and goes for a run.

(And by run, what she actually means is a light jog to try and strengthen her foot without pushing it too far).

Spring is finally encroaching on the city, and it’s actually fairly pleasant out in the watery morning sunshine, dew glistening on the wide riverside grass banks as Nicole loses herself to the familiar, rhythmic pound of her shoes on the pathway. Although work should be the last thing on her mind, her thoughts almost instinctively fall to the only case she currently has; the one of the missing paperwork. Again, Nicole can’t shake the feeling that something is amiss. There hasn’t been a case of missing documentation in the archive for years - it simply doesn’t happen - and the fact that there’s no record of who took out or returned the papers seems...sketchy.

Plus, Nicole is really curious to know more about that case, and about that grisly-sounding murder. Arguably not the best or most conventional motivation but natural curiosity was a huge part of why most people join the force and Nicole was no different. Still, that wasn’t to say she didn’t need to take a mental break from work while she wasn’t actually there.

Everything currently felt slightly unsure and anxious; her final assessments looming closer and standing squarely in the way of her becoming a qualified officer, trying to find a placement after the Academy (or hoping she is assigned one she’ll like), getting through this archive assignment. She knows she needs to switch off - so she runs (jogs). She runs (jogs) until she can think of nothing more than controlling her breathing and pushing past that all-too familiar wall. She carries on until a particularly angry twinge in her heel says ‘stop’ and so she listens, slowing to a cool-down walk and calling into a bakery on her way home for a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant.

(What? She’s earned it).

Priority number two of the day is to shower and get through chores; getting laundry done is usually a late-night-trying-not-to-fall-asleep-by-the-drier affair, because more often than not Nicole has been too preoccupied or too tired to put a load in and she realises too late that she doesn’t have any clean sports bras left.

She’s sat down in the building’s communal laundry room when her mom calls unexpectedly, and she feels a pang of guilt at how long it’s been since they’ve talked. Hearing her mother’s voice feels good and the instant she picks up the phone it’s like a little of the tension she’s been feeling melts away. They speak until Nicole’s laundry is clean, her mom talking about her shifts at the hospital and how she’s getting too old to work all night and _didn’t Nicole learn anything from her horrible nursing shifts as a kid about just working a regular nine-to-five?_ Nicole tells her mom about the archive and notes the strained tone of the response when her mother infers that at least this means Nicole is keeping out of danger.

Nicole had always had a bit of a habit of getting hurt, so having a nurse for a mother was probably a good thing. There was the time she broke her ankle tripping on a hidden patch of black ice when she was eleven, the time a man driving recklessly on a motorbike knocked her down in a parking lot when she was sixteen, the second-degree burn from a bunsen burner when she was in her senior year (that one had left a permanent mark on her right forearm). Then, of course, there were all the strains that came from being on track and soccer teams her whole life. And that wasn’t even starting on the injuries her mom didn’t actually know about - falling and managing to dislocate and half-flay her left leg while rock-climbing just outside of Vegas comes to mind (though, to be fair, her mom didn’t know about that trip at all).

So, Nicole understands why her mom worries about her joining the force; she gets herself in enough scrapes when not in any real danger. But things had been strained recently when it came to Nicole’s choice of her career and the associated life choices her mom thought that entailed. She blamed Nicole’s training on what she saw as her serial monogamy, because Nicole had never shared much of her dating life with her family.

Her parents were great people, but they wouldn’t be cool with the whole lesbian thing. They certainly wouldn’t have been cool with the drunken-Vegas-wedding-to-another-woman and subsequent divorce thing, either. She’s fairly certain her younger sister wouldn’t care, but she doesn’t want to drag her into anything and they do say ignorance is bliss.

Nicole doesn’t let on that she does date occasionally, because it would involve coming out and, with enough stress in her life as it stands, it’s easier to let her parents just think she can’t find time to date as a cadet.

Nicole deftly directs the conversation away from any dangerous territory and gets her mom to fill her in on the goings on with the family instead, letting the information wash over her as she lugs her laundry basket back up the stairs to the fourth floor.

And in the end it seems to be a day for catching up as, not long after she hangs up from her mom, Shae facetimes her on the off chance she’s free. Things should be awkward between them, what with the whole drunken marriage and eventual annulment thing they have going on, but they worked out pretty quickly that they do a lot better as friends than they ever did as a couple. You don’t really go through a post-marriage equality celebratory wedding at a sleazy Vegas chapel with someone and not come out the other end of it friends, which pretty much sums up Nicole’s relationship with Shae.

She is interesting to talk to, whip-smart, and painfully funny and is exactly the conversationalist Nicole needs right now. They share as much as they can about work without flouting confidentiality rules, which isn't a great deal, and Nicole gets the skinny on the girl Shae might or might not be seeing (she totally is).

When Nicole doesn't have much of any “gossip” to return in kind, Shae’s brow furrows slightly.

“Look, I know you're kind of constrained by becoming your best superhero self and getting the paperwork to prove it, but you need to get out and have fun too.”

Nicole snorts, particularly at the irony heavy in Shae’s voice (it's not like she's not overloading herself with electives at med school at the moment).

“Hey!” Shae says indignantly. “I might work hard but I'm having fun too. Lots and lots and -”

Amid laughter Nicole holds up her hands and cuts Shae off before she can go any further.

“Okay Casanova, I get the picture. Don't need all the gory details thanks.”

Still, the conversation with Shae gets her thinking about the last time she took a self-care day. It was distant enough that she couldn't remember and so she spends the next few days enjoying herself, even if not in the way Shae means. She takes herself to two different cinemas and spends a good few hours one afternoon at a garden centre, picking up a few extra cacti for the budding collection on her windowsill. (Her current accommodation doesn't allow pets but it's nice to have at least some life in the apartment besides her monosyllabic roommate). She cooks herself some nice dinners and freezes the leftovers so that she’ll have decent food if she gets home late one day. She even takes a long bubble bath while her roommate is out (only after thoroughly cleaning the whole bathroom, though). She tries not to think about work, and the end result is that she wakes up feeling refreshed and strangely ready to talk with Waverly Earp which, as it turns out, is pretty fortuitous.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

**vi.**

 

 

_> From: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Sent: 10 April 2017 22:21 _  
_> To: Haught, Nicole  <nicole.haught@opc.gc.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: Archival material request _  
_> Attachment:  document release request.pdf _

_Dear Nicole,_

_I’m sorry to bother you with yet more requests when you’re still searching for the last ones. I’m hoping these will at least be easier to find (or may even be on the database already :) ??!), but I’ve had some more recommendations and was told I could also find these ones with you guys. This is actually a case file on a known criminal outlaw from Ontario: James Arthur Palmer._

_If it helps, he had a pretty crazy life - should make for interesting reading if you can find it!_

_Thank you so much again for all your help._

_Kindest regards,_  
_Waverly_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_**vii. April 2017; Purgatory, Alberta** _

 

Waverly would be lying if she said that her research interests weren't at least slightly about the genealogy. She had spent the large part of her teenage years coming to terms with the loss of her family (either directly as a result of The Incident, or later on down the line) by throwing herself into research. So much of being Earp felt like being pawn, or just part of some bigger plan, and it didn't leave much space for Waverly to just be, well, Waverly.

Wynonna had encouraged her to keep her head down as a kid, to not rise to the stuff Waverly’s classmates stage-whispered, and Waverly did her best to take her big sister’s advice (even when said sister wasn't so good at following her own rules). But even though kindness and easy smiles had always come naturally to her, the lack of control in the path of her life sometimes felt like it burned a hole in her chest. She spent so much time fitting herself to what others needed her to be, cut off any parts that would rock the boat, that by the time she was a junior Waverly craved something, anything she could control. Under no illusions that she was smarter than most, she threw herself into her studies and persisted at her twice-weekly dance classes (a regular fixture since Gus and Curtis took her in and had wanted to provide her with routine and stability, letting her choose a couple of hobbies to pursue). But mostly there was the curse.

No matter how little she and Wynonna talked about it, or how much her aunt and uncle willed her to banish the memory as some childish abstraction, Waverly hadn't forgotten that they were in some way cursed. Researching what she could about her family gave her some semblance of the control over her life that she had so rarely experienced. She constructed a family tree on a corkboard by her desk, and put up a “Peacemaker timeline” of the seventy-seven that spanned the perimeter of her room and then some. She picked up as much Latin as she could online before her uncle gifted her a fully-accredited distance learning course for her fifteenth birthday (not every teenager's ideal present, granted, but enough to send Waverly on a loud victory lap of the kitchen before hurling herself at Curtis for a giant bear hug).

And then, as she was nearing the end of high school and beginning to consider the looming ‘what next?’ question, she realised that she was actually _good_ at studying the past and that, maybe, there was a future for her in history. So to speak. But even then the thought of straying too far from Purgatory wasn't something she relished; she's not like Wynonna - she doesn't embrace change quite as well, not when almost every change in her life thus far had been directed and controlled by someone else. Besides, she'd been dating Champ a little while, and she'd invested far too much in committing to the idea of a relationship with him to write it off as lost time.

So she studies in Calgary from day one, which has always been a total nightmare of a commute on the buses, but it lets her work at Shorty’s for the extra money and still be near the people she knows best. Shorty (God bless him) even lets her live above the bar more or less rent-free for a reduced wage, so she gets a safe dose of independence as a way to dip her toe in the water.

She works hard throughout her undergraduate year (and every year since), burning the candle at both ends as she tries to work, study, and still socialise like other college-age students. How the hell she never burned out is still beyond her. Her research interests have always been a given since the moment she got to choose her own dissertation topic. No professor is going to take a so-called curse seriously and it’s hard enough pitching her ideas to various advisers over the years, because they clocked her surname and would assume she was only there on some vanity project. Luckily, Waverly is nothing if not charming and she usually brings people round. Researching the Old West gives her an inroad to her own history, even if it perhaps isn’t her most natural occupation. She could just as easily have chosen to research antiquity (those dead languages keep accruing and she has a natural talent for writing about the ancient world), but all told she genuinely loves her current work - couldn’t write a doctoral thesis on it if she didn’t - and it helps with her revenant research side project, because she could hardly check out confidential police documents without it.

Besides, she could always get another PhD at a later date - it’s a bit frivolous but life is for living as Gus says. And, after all, if Rosita - a good few years Waverly’s senior - can put herself through a second PhD on the back of bar work and a family inheritance she never speaks about, then Waverly can make it work in the future too.

She’s at least clawing back some control over her destiny, and she’s good at what she does. She has lots of academic interest in her work, which in itself opens doors to resources (even if Waverly is remaining charmingly noncommittal when other universities express interest at this stage). She finds that she’s strangely enjoying the challenge of source procurement now - or at least she hates it less. It’s not half as much the ballache as it once seemed to be, though perhaps that has something to do with the pleasant exchanges between herself and a certain police cadet in Ontario. Although she’s still emailing - or in a few cases, visiting - libraries and archives left, right, and center, Waverly finds that a lot of the records she currently needs are held in one of two police academy libraries; either in Ontario or Saskewatchen. It’s kind of a toss up as to which is better; on the one hand Saskewatchen hasn’t lost a hugely important archival record, on the other the head archivist there is always vaguely irritable at best and downright terrifying at worst. The service from Ontario is, definitively, much better.

She’s emailed back and forth with Nicole Haught enough by now that they’re on much more familiar ground. Nicole takes an interest in the sources she finds for Waverly and starts asking questions about Waverly’s research after the third request.

Outside of Nedley, she is the only non-family member and non-student to do so.

Waverly tries to pretend she's really not bitter at Champ about that. Her work is a big part of her life and she's in the lucky minority of people who actually enjoy what occupies them, and it's upsetting that he doesn't take an active interest.

So, that's the excuse she uses when she starts pouring information into her emails to the OPC. It's nice to have someone who listens (well, reads) and can actually engage with what Waverly says. Neither Gus nor Nedley really _understands_ her passion even if they are both endearingly sweet enough to ask, so Waverly never wants to bore them. Curtis is always a great ear when Waverly wants to talk about her research but there's also something about emailing Nicole that is just so nice, comforting even.

Perhaps most exciting of all, Nicole’s comments about her own experiences of modern day law enforcement provide Waverly with a fresh perspective on the key question of continuity and change in Waverly’s thesis. It's important, after all, that Waverly really gets to the finer detail of the enduring legacy of lawkeepers like Wyatt Earp and his associates. It's a two-pronged enquiry; what was the cultural takeaway on men (and some women too - the surviving documentary evidence is frustratingly minimal; just another example of women being hidden from history) like Wyatt and Doc Holliday, and what was their legacy in more practical terms? Waverly spies an opportunity through talking to Nicole, who's incredibly well-versed in where to find online crime stats, surveys, and reports from the police. It had been a vast gap in Waverly’s knowledge and it was slowly being filled. She's made a note to talk to Nedley the next time her bar shift aligns with one of his visits to Shorty’s, but Nicole’s take seems fresh and right up to date with the times. It spurs her on to send perhaps her most demanding request to Nicole yet.

 

 

_Hi Nicole,_

_Me again, sorry! This isn't really 100% related to my usual reasons for annoying you so sorry in advance for bothering you at work._

_As I think I've said, I really focus one of my chapters on continuity vs change, and sometimes some of the stuff you mention offhand, comparing what's in the papers I ask for to how things are today, is really helpful._

_It's a bit of a cheeky request but would you be at all happy for me to ask you a few pre-planned questions? It'd probably be one of those things that'd be easier over the phone but if you want I can email you instead. Of course I wouldn't include anything you weren't happy with in my final piece and you could read through the relevant parts of my thesis before I submit it (although that's still a long way off yet!)_

_No worries if you can't/don't want to._

 

 

It is in Waverly’s nature to overthink interactions; it's sort of a given when you've spent so much time trying to fit yourself into the boxes other people have put together for you in their little game of social acceptability. This means she worries as soon as the email is sent that she's been too pushy or gotten too familiar (after all, she doesn't actually _know_ Nicole, no matter how much their increasingly cordial interactions made it feel that she does), and it’s probably fortunate that she isn’t kept waiting for long - Nicole, she has noticed, seems to often work late into the evening.

 

_Hi Waverly,_

_Sure, that’s no problem - flattered that you think I can be of any use to you._

_Only issue is that I probably can’t take a call at work at the moment - I’m nearing final assessments and will be spending a lot of time in final tutorials/information sessions. How does an out of hours phone or video call sound? My family’s in town after tomorrow so how does next Wednesday at around 8pm work for you? (I won’t be working the graveyard shift for once! - shocker!)_

 

Waverly smiles at the enthusiastic response, and apologetically reschedules for a different day that week - explaining that she has a shift at the bar - before returning dutifully to one of the draft copies of her thesis (which can be found on the internal storage of three different computers, one external hard drive, one memory stick, and two separate online documents - because Waverly isn’t at all paranoid).

The only time she doesn’t enjoy the writing process is when a deadline is looming - it suddenly feels a lot like _having_ to write over _choosing_ to write, and the two motivations usually produce vastly different results from Waverly. Her tutor is expecting that draft copy of her fourth chapter in the next week or two, which has caused a totally, one hundred percent related bout of writers’ block. She moves a few paragraphs around until a text chips away at her limited concentration and she dives for her phone as an excuse to look away from the document on screen.

The message is from Champ, which isn’t surprising as she’s been doing her level best to avoid him for the past few days. He’s just got back from a rodeo and has been trying to get her to ‘hang out’ with him since. He isn’t subtle, and Waverly isn’t really in the mood for over-before-it-started sex in Champ’s dirty apartment. As it turns out, PhDs are, amongst other things, good excuses to avoid your boyfriend. But as resolute as she’s been in insisting she’s too busy this close to a deadline, Champ has been equally persistent in his texts.

This one, however, isn’t remotely like the others.

 

_**CH** : Missing you allready, cant wait to c that hot purple get up agen soon_

 

Waverly’s first reaction is to cringe, her second is to realise with an unpleasant jolt that she doesn’t actually own a ‘hot purple get up’; none of her nice underwear is purple. The text clearly wasn’t meant for her, and is just another sign on a recently expanded list that Champ is seeing someone else. Waverly isn’t actually surprised, it’s been going on too long for that and Champ’s never really been smart enough to hide it properly. At this point, she doesn’t even know why she puts up with it.

Her phone buzzes again and she allows herself a bitter (and, yes okay, slightly teary) smirk of satisfaction, expecting a panicked message from Champ but, if he’s realised his mistake, he doesn’t feel the need to correct it.

 

_> From: Nicole Haught [mailto:nhaught90@hotmail.com] _  
_> Sent: 20 April 2017 21:04 _  
_> To: Waverly Earp _  
_> Subject: _

_Hey Waverly,_

_Sorry I had to clock out super quick to get my mom and sister from the station, just wanted to confirm that next Friday works fine for me._

_Looking forward to talking._

_Nicole_

 

This time, Waverly looks at her phone and she smiles.

 

 

 

 

 

Time drags on, and very little else changes. She works at Shorty’s, or she works at the university. She worries about Wynonna or she fusses over a temporarily ailing Gus. She sees Rosita and Jeremy when she can (which, honestly, is only once for their officially mandated once-monthly pyjamas, popcorn, and movie night round at Rosita’s apartment). She reads endlessly and writes frantically. She ignores Champ because she’s never been an excessively violent person - what? She has a bit of a temper - but if he says something else remotely risqué but simultaneously idiotic then she’s going to snap and punch him in his perfectly symmetrical face. She burns the candle at both ends once more, and definitely doesn’t sleep enough, which is evidenced by a very late Thursday night (or should that be Friday morning?) trip to the University library. She has already texted Jeremy, who lives right round the corner, about a place on his sofa so she doesn’t have to worry about being stranded. That is, if she even makes it out of the library before the first bus to Purgatory runs at eight thirty. It feels unlikely, both because she’s sworn blind she won’t leave until she finishes her chapter draft, and also because she’s currently falling asleep at her desk.

Her eyes flicker shut and her mind drifts, feeling fuzzy and faraway at the edges, and it swims until her phone buzzing on the table shocks her back into wakefulness, earning her a few rueful glances from some fellow students.

 

_**RB** : I can literally see you nodding off across the room. Go home sleepyhead. _  
_**WE** : ugh, creep. where are you? _  
_**RB** : Check the far booths on your right. _

 

Waverly glances up, blinking sleep out of her eyes and scanning the room until she locates Rosita. With her hair up in a messy – but still annoyingly effortless – bun, and her oversized glasses on (it’s much too late for contacts), she looks about as energised as Waverly feels. As if to illustrate the point she raises up an enormous, university-branded reusable cup which she has somehow smuggled into the library as contraband, and takes an exaggerated gulp. Waverly smiles and nods in sympathy.

Rosita goes back to her phone and Waverly waits for her own to light up (she's learnt her lesson from before).

 

_**RB** : Too lazy to move all my stuff over to you sorry. Also too lazy to text, email instead??? _  
_**WE** : aren't we meant to be working?? _  
_**RB** : Please, you've been napping since you got here _  
_**WE** : harsh but fair, give me one sec _

 

Waverly unlocks her laptop which, much like her, had been in sleep mode for the last half hour, and sends a quick email off. They talk back and forth while Rosita waits for whatever programme she's using to plot her experiment results on the patchy library wifi. Waverly resigns herself to getting very little else done for the time being, and eventually calls up a fresh email window, planning to email Nicole to confirm the time for their call later.

Rosita’s email is quicker, and is typical of her usual candour. It’s so short the preview in the bottom right corner reveals it all without Waverly even having to click on it.

 

_Anyway, enough small talk. How's the boyfriend situation since you oh-so-subtly wouldn’t talk about it the other night?? R x_

 

Waverly glances away from her laptop to catch Rosita looking across at her, flashing an innocent grin. Amused, Waverly shakes her head to herself, hands hovering over the keyboard as she wonders how to answer. She is tempted to simply say that everything is ok, but it won't cut it with Rosita. For once, Waverly wants to talk, _really_ talk, about how she's feeling - not just a few cryptic words or a drunken admission. Besides, maybe getting things off her chest will help her focus on her thesis.

 

_‘the boyfriend situation’ is not good. i really don't want to be That girlfriend who snoops or jumps to conclusions but i’m not even looking for signs he's playing away they're just...there? underwear that's not mine (or his!) in my flat, a flirty text that definitely wasn't for me based on context, a ‘day out with boys’ - except then they all walk into shorty’s without him and i make a total fool of myself asking about their trip to the city while they have no idea what i’m talking about._

_i really just don't know what to do. (and yes i do know really that the sensible thing would be to ask and make sure there's not been a misunderstanding, but you know when you just know something in your gut??) we’ve been together since high school and it's all just a mess, honestly._

 

She doesn’t even check the email through before sending it. It's a weird experience, offloading that much onto someone else and if she'd read over what she'd written she'd have censored herself completely, or even erased the whole thing and simply avoided the question entirely.

Rosita doesn’t get back immediately, but Waverly can see her typing across the room and assumes that either she is working or replying. Rather than worrying about oversharing, she turns to her assignment; she might be too distracted for actual work but she can sort out her footnotes at the very least.

She is halfway through the third page of her chapter when Rosita emails again, simply a string of question marks and the words ‘ _did I push it a bit far? Sorry :( R x'_. The response doesn’t really make sense until an email from Nicole appears a moment later and Waverly immediately feels heat rush to her cheeks and along the back of her neck.

Oh God. Oh how typically, appropriately embarrassing. She hadn’t actually opened Rosita’s email, but in her exhaustion and need to vent, she’d simply typed in the open email window - the one she’d been about to send to OPC. She hadn’t even got as far as putting a subject line in.

She half-closes her eyes as she calls the response up.

 

_> From: Haught, Nicole  <nicole.haught@opc.gc.ca> _  
_> Sent: 28 April 2017 02:11 _  
_> To: Waverly Earp  <waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: _

_So I’m going to use my budding cop skills to assess that this wasn’t meant for me...but, for what it’s worth: dump him. You honestly deserve a thousand times better than a guy who cheats._

_Nicole_

 

Exactly two minutes later another email from Nicole appears, as if things weren’t embarrassing enough. But when Waverly opens it she finds her being impossibly sweet and it makes her feel strangely buoyant, although to be fair that could also be the sleep deprivation.

 

_Sorry if that’s overstepping. But I just really thought I should say it, in case it’s what you needed to hear and no one else had said it to you yet. You know better than anyone what’s right in your own life but you also need know that you don’t deserve someone who won’t be faithful._

 

It takes Waverly herself nearly ten full minutes to send a vaguely coherent response. Professionalism seems to have flown out the window so she does her best to sound as friendly but still put-together as she can:

 

_i cannot even begin to say how mortified i feel right now. i’m so sorry. god i hope no one monitors your emails. i was meant to be emailing you to check we’re still on for the interview, and then my friend asked about...you know. and it’s late and i got mixed up. and why are you even up anyway - you’re not supposed to be doing these shifts at the moment?!_

_anyway i’m sorry again. thank you for saying those things though._

 

The reply follows quickly.

 

_I can’t say no to people when they beg me to switch shifts with them?_

_And seriously, don’t worry about it. Mistakes happen and hey, sometimes therapy is easier to accept from random almost-strangers. Even if this random almost-stranger is pretty much terrible at relationship advice, especially if it involves men. More so if it’s men who don’t treat their girlfriends right._

_Also, still good the interview later - shall I be ready for 7pm?_

 

Waverly’s cheeks are still burning but she can’t help but smile to herself. There is something about Nicole - a spark, sort of - that, even off the back of semi-professional emails, makes Waverly want to know her more. She can’t put her finger on it, precisely, but she’s strangely excited to speak to Nicole later, to hear her voice or even see her down a screen. Although now there will also be a generous helping of embarrassment in the mix. Still, Waverly feels oddly like she somehow knows Nicole Haught which is strange because she really, really doesn’t.

 

_thank you again for being so cool, seriously._

_7pm is perfect - you have my number so just give me a call when you’re ready._

_don’t work too hard, i’m off to find a dodgy spot in the carpet where if i’m lucky the ground might swallow me up._

 

Unbeknownst to Waverly her response makes Nicole laugh, unexpected and loud. The kind of laugh she has to cover, and hope no one was around to hear. All Waverly can do at this point is return to her thesis because goddamn it she is an adult, with all (some) of her shit together, and she might be incapable of writing an email but she can finish Chapter Four before she passes out from exhaustion entirely.

But, just before that, time for a quick message, the recipient of which is carefully checked and rechecked:

 

_> From: Waverly Earp  <warverlyearp@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Sent: 28 April 2017 02:11 _  
_> To: Rosita Bustillos  <rositabustillos@ucalgary.ca> _  
_> Subject: RE: _

_oh sweet lord, do i have something to tell you...._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back. Back already. Guess who's back and absolutely overwhelmed by your kind comments and the overall reaction to the fic so far. It is absolutely beyond unexpected! Thank you all so much - more on that after the update. 
> 
> Here's a teeny weeny tiny bit shorter chapter here for you guys: it features a video chat, a bad boyfriend, some bisexual awakenings, and mostly just a lot of ramped up feelings between our favourite girls. Life comes at you so fast. 
> 
> I really hope you guys all enjoy it!

**_viii._ **

**_April 2017; Ottawa, Ontario_ **

 

 

Nicole is a soon to be fully-trained and qualified cop. She’s an adult. There is absolutely no reason why she should be getting nervous butterflies in her stomach about the thought of making this call.

(Okay, there were definitely at least eight different reasons to be nervous but even so, it was hard to justify the sheer intensity of the fluttering in her stomach).

In actuality, she’s more accurately a strange mix of nervous and excited.

There’s just the general nervousness of hanging on video chat in a semi-professional capacity with someone she’s only ever emailed before. That’s kind of a given; she doesn’t want things to be awkward, especially if Nicole is asked something she doesn’t know how to answer.

Those nervous butterflies have a lot to do with the fact that Waverly Earp is really bright, and she’ll probably ask really smart questions. Nicole knows she does okay for intelligence, but she also wants to be able to keep up.

Then again, the nervousness could also have something to with the turn of events not even twenty-four hours ago that left Nicole going a little bit _too_ hard on encouraging Waverly to dump her cheating boyfriend. That was not her finest moment, and the only saving grace really is that the only person more embarrassed than Nicole was probably Waverly herself.

It’s one thing to be supportive of a long-term friend, it’s another entirely to have told Waverly to just kick a guy to the curb over a late-night email chain.

The problem, Nicole thinks, is she can't really tell whether they're friends - but they feel like more than acquaintances. It would be a huge stretch for her to imply that she knew Waverly quite to that extent yet, but she certainly wanted to get to that point. And it felt like they were well on their way.

They had already exchanged enough emails that Nicole had lost count, because there was something in the way that Waverly spoke about her work that kept Nicole asking questions. Waverly always seemed happy to answer them, and their ensuing discussions were fast becoming the best parts of Nicole's day. It wasn't that she wasn't trying to make the best of her placement, but she was still spending the bulk of of her working hours rifling through archive boxes full of dreary documents that were nothing like the tall historical tales Waverly told her. The passion that Waverly showed in talking about her research was almost tangible via email alone, and so Nicole had nearly jumped at the chance when Waverly suggested a more in-person conversation. 

Or, that's the reason Nicole is giving at any rate. 

It's definitely preferable to dwelling on how her stomach had flipped when, the other day at Nicole's request, Waverly had sent a link to a small journal piece she'd written. Waverly's article had been good - so good that even Nicole's untrained eye could tell as much, but her gut-based reaction had more come about when she'd caught sight of a small professional photo at the bottom with an author's blurb. Turns out, Waverly Earp is really,  _really_ cute. In a way, Nicole is actually kind of glad she's prepared for it. 

Which brings her back to sitting with her phone in hand, facetime up and ready with Waverly’s number waiting. It is bang on 7pm for her, which has lead her to debate whether she should let a couple of minutes pass. Surely if 7:02pm says punctual and keen, calling on the hour could be closer to punctual and 'hopeless lesbian keen'.

She gives herself a quick pep talk which mostly amounts to her saying softly  _'get it together, Haught_ ', before winging off a quick prayer to God or Sappho or whoever might be listening that she can be the smoothest, best version of herself tonight.

She presses ‘call' and it barely rings out twice before Waverly answers. Then she’s there, smiling widely on Nicole’s phone, giving a small wave and _God_  was Nicole imagining it or did her heart just stop for a second there?

“Nicole, hey!” Waverly says, and it seems unfair that even her voice is cute; high and bubbly and filled with laughter. “It’s so good to finally put a face to the name!”

"Hi, _yeah_ definitely!" Nicole says, inwardly wincing at how much intonation she’d put into that sentence and wondering just how obvious it was that she'd put quite a lot of significance into having already done just that.

There is a beat of quiet in which neither of them speaks; the only sounds were Nicole’s roommate moving around in the room next door, and the gentle hum of whatever music Waverly was playing in her own room.

( _Smells like sugar, white, sweet, true. Why would I worry bout nothing? Just paint the night baby, everything’s my colour; blue, blue, blue…)_

Just as Waverly goes to end the hush between them, a massive bang and accompanying cheer from Nicole’s roommate and his friends makes them both jump.

Nicole tenses her jaw slightly before, as calmly as possible, apologising and asking Waverly to excuse her for just a moment. She carefully ensures that she has disappeared from frame before banging her palm flat against their adjoining wall.

“Hey! Shut up, you’re not the only one who lives here you know!”

She doesn’t expect a response, but she gets one anyway. “What like I’m disturbing you? You never have plans.”

“Yeah well tonight I do so cut it out!”

They’re yelling more to be heard through the walls than through actual confrontation, but after the exchange Nicole composes herself and straightens her Academy t-shirt before returning to her phone as though nothing has happened.

“Sorry again,” she replies as serenely as possible, half-embarrassed and half-unsurprised that something like that happened within a minute of their call. Because of course it did.

Looking ever so slightly blurred onscreen, Waverly is clearly doing her level best to suppress a smile. She fails miserably and it’s kind of adorable, the way she bites her lip to try and stop it curving upwards, particularly given that she’s already smiling so hard her eyes begin to crinkle at the edges.

“Living above a bar, I thought I’d be the one to get the noisy neighbours,” she observes, still amused.

Nicole rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh. “God it’s a nightmare here, I can’t wait to leave.”

“Do you get to do that soon?” Waverly asks conversationally, as though they're simply having a bit of a catch up conversation. Perhaps that dynamic feels as natural for her as it does for Nicole herself. Waverly seems to realise this a moment later and her eyes widen slightly. “Sorry, that was kind of off-topic. You don’t have to answer that.”

This time, it’s Nicole’s turn to try not to smile. Waverly gets kind of awkward when she panics.

“No it’s cool, thanks for asking. Yeah I mean once - well, _if_ \- I qualify I’ll probably get posted somewhere else, or I can look for placements if I want.”

Waverly nods, clearly spurred on by Nicole’s willingness to talk. “So will you go back to your hometown?”

Nicole exhales suddenly, thinking about the question for a moment.

“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m really not sure where I want to go. It’s like, I have so many options I don’t even know where to begin. I can literally just go anywhere and it makes it hard to know whether to set my sights on something or roll the dice and wait to be assigned somewhere.” Nicole could say so much more on the subject because it's half of what's been preoccupying her recently (and okay, a lot of the remaining half is related to Waverly Earp, but Nicole isn't ready to tackle that yet). The thing is, she hasn't actually spoken much of this thought process aloud; the way she's feeling slightly insecure about where her career might take her. 

It's surprising how _unsurprising_ it feels to tell this to Waverly first.

Waverly smiles knowingly at Nicole’s response and it fills Nicole with an inexplicable feeling that, for once, she is being seen and understood.

“Oh jeez, tell me about it. It sometimes feels like we’re supposed to be doing everything at once, like we’ve got to try and make all these concrete plans right now, and live all our life in these moments, and it’s hard to remind yourself that you can take a step back and just... _breathe_ , you know? It sometimes just feels like everything is happening too fast.” Most of Waverly’s response almost comes out in one breath and, like Nicole, she seems to realise that she’s offloaded quite a lot without intending to do so, because she falls silent as quickly as she spoke and almost audibly snaps her mouth shut.

“Sorry," she apologises after a moment. "Probably nothing I just said made any sense.”

Nicole laughs; just a small, controlled sound but her chest feels fit to burst.

“No I totally get it, trust me _,_ ” she says, trying to be as reassuring as possible and it earns her a winning smile that does nothing whatsoever for that feeling in her chest, like someone has inflated a small balloon near her ribs.

Looking at Waverly there on the screen, Nicole can almost feel herself falling and it comes with a slight sense of panic. Before she can say anything that might lead to embarrassment, she adds, “anyway I think you had some work-related questions for me? I really hope I can actually be of some help.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Waverly says brightly, taking a sip of water from a pink plastic tumbler before reaching over and picking up a pen and some cue cards. She notices when Nicole raises an eyebrow at her notes and looks sheepish. “Yeah, I’m kind of a planner.”

“I can see that,” Nicole says with a grin, and when she doesn’t speak further Waverly sifts through her questions.

“Okay so the first thing I wanted to ask - ”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_viii._ **

**_April 2017; Purgatory, Alberta_ **

 

 

Waverly Earp is a big fat liar and she’s no good at hiding it. She had totally looked Nicole up on Facebook earlier that day, after she woke up from a solid five-hour nap and couldn’t quite be bothered to drag herself off the couch right away.

(In her defence she had just pulled an all-nighter at the library which had, at least, resulted in a more than decent amount of progress. It also meant solidly ignoring a string of emails in which Rosita just laughed at her. A lot).

With no sign of her missing archive papers, but with the promise from Nicole at the end of their conversation that she is on the case, her adviser will just have to accept a slight omission. It’s not like any of this is graded, but she’d be a fool not to get as much advice as possible for the coming year or so. After all, her hard work will all come down to that one final deadline in a year's time. Besides, she could now tell her adviser she had a lot of material to add into a later chapter, all thanks to her conversation with Nicole.

They had spoken for hours - so long in fact, that Waverly had nearly been late going down to the bar and Nicole had been trying to valiantly stifle a string of yawns. Waverly had felt a slight dart of guilt run through her when Nicole revealed that she'd been pulling a few double shifts to help a classmate out, and also to try and find documents for Waverly. She'd been so helpful, Waverly half-wished there was something more she could do to show her gratitude, but initially she'd had to settle for a text after they'd hung up - 

 

 

_**WE** : hey Nicole, i just wanted to say thank you again for all your help. you must have been so exhausted and it means a lot that you took the time out to speak with me tonight. if there's ever anything i can do to repay you, then please just say the word._  
_**WE** : so long as it doesn't involve actual repayments. i'm pretty much broke._  
_**NH** : Haha oh god I know the feeling!_  
_**NH** : And seriously it's my pleasure - no repayments necessary. I usually accept my thanks in the form of coffee and since you're not here I'll get you off. _  
_**NH** : *LET!!!!!_  
_**NH** : let you off. _

 

 

Probably unsurprisingly, there is a pause between those texts and the next one Nicole sends, which arrives just as Waverly gets behind the bar, throwing an apologetic look at Shorty across the room. 

 

 

_**NH** : Anyway moving swiftly on from that typo_  
_**NH** : I enjoyed talking to you :smiley emoji:_  
_**WE** : i enjoyed talking to you too - we should do it again, i'm sure i'll have more questions at some point!!_

 

 

Waverly meant it sincerely. (And she was kind of angling for a reason to talk again anyway).  

Talking to Nicole had made her nervous and excited in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time. In truth, Nicole confused her and, to an extent, scared her a little bit. It somehow felt like Waverly was already at ease with Nicole, and something in that sensation threw her off course. It was like they knew each other already, or somehow that they'd always known each other; like they’d been cut from the same cloth right at the beginning.

And as much as that feeling alone had given her pause, Waverly had been equally confused by the way that just _seeing_ Nicole - first in photos and then down a phone - had made her feel. It was warm and familiar and like a comfort Waverly hadn’t known she’d been searching for until she found it. It was like soft blankets in wintertime, or a warm bath over aching muscles.

And gosh Nicole was pretty; all bright red waves settling at that sharp jawline; clear, perceptive eyes; and dimples anyone would die for.

Something about her presence had just felt natural - it hadn't felt awkward for a single second. 

There was something else too. Something similar to how it had felt to connect with Rosita and Jeremy. 

It wasn't ever easy in Purgatory, where people knew every part of your business almost as soon as you did and where the surname Earp was a curse completely separate from ghosts or demons. 

Nicole didn't know anything about their mother abandoning them, or their father's drinking, or his and Willa's untimely deaths. She didn't know about how Waverly and Wynonna had suffered, about the nightmares or the flashbacks. Waverly knew that, in part, this made connecting to people easier. It wasn't that she was ashamed of the past but that, for the longest time, people hadn't given her a chance because of it. Meeting people now meant that she had the chance to forge her own path, even as she already had this deep sense that Nicole wasn't the kind of person who'd care if she did know all there was to know about Waverly.

They'd discussed a few of Nicole's cases in as much depth as she was able under her confidentiality clauses, but she'd described the members of the public she'd helped with such kindness that Waverly could see in those few hours alone just how good of a cop Nicole would become. She  _cared -_  that much was obvious from the way her face glowed when she talked about her time as a cadet, and it was clear that she wanted to make a real difference. It was evident, even, in the way she had been dead on her feet and still took the time to talk to Waverly, when she'd made it clear her time in the archive was not something she otherwise enjoyed. 

In short, Waverly had decided that Nicole was exactly the kind of person she would want to turn up in a crisis. In fact, she thinks about Nicole a lot in the days that follow. 

She thinks about her in the soft yellow lamplight of her bedroom, sat up against some pillows with a windowsill full of plants behind her. She thinks about Nicole laughing at a joke Waverly had told. It was a terrible punchline, but Nicole had laughed anyway. 

She thinks about Nicole so much she finds about three excuses to text her over the next few days, and around her shifts Nicole always replies at length. Mostly it's not even about work anymore, but to Waverly it's still information gathering. She has always been about research, and that extends to every aspect of her life. Plus, she's really really good at it. 

Case in point: she resolves to subtly finds out what Nicole's favourite candies are, and then gets a box of not entirely inexpensive 'thank you' chocolates sent to her apartment (finding out the address to which was an endeavour all of its own). Her efforts are rewarded by Nicole's genuine surprise, a long string of  _Oh my God, thank you!_ and  _Shit Waverly you really didn't have to do that_ texts, and an ironic selfie of Nicole pulling a stupid face as she stares lovingly at the wrapped up box. 

Waverly doesn’t fully understand all the feelings gradually bursting into flame beneath her skin as the days progress except that, deep down, she kind of thinks that she maybe does. It is just taking something of an adjustment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In true Earp style, however, not all things in Waverly's personal life were going half as well. 

One dinnertime a week later, Champ calls round (which effectively means he comes upstairs from the bar, since he's been there all day) and plays video games while Waverly cooks. She isn’t really in the mood to try and prepare anything especially fancy, and just throws some spaghetti into a pan while she reheats leftover sauce she’d made and frozen for just this instance where she lacked any real motivation.

He moans a little at the ‘no bells and whistles’ meal she eventually sets in front of him, and Waverly has to work to bite back a comment that it’s better than anything he’s cooked. Besides, she can count on one hand the number of times he’s cooked for her or even helped her out in the kitchen.

 She tries not to be irritable or resentful but, when he just goes right back to his video games after the meal, not even bothering to take his plate to the kitchenette, it is close to impossible. He asks for a beer before Waverly can even fill the sink with soapy water, and for once in her life she outright tells him he’ll have to get it himself.

It shocks her as much as it does Champ, because normally she'd have just switched to autopilot and gone through the motions. 

“ _Babe_ ,” he whines, but she just rolls her sleeves up and plunges her arms into the too-hot water, deliberately clattering the cutlery more aggressively than necessary.

Eventually he gets the beer himself, but doesn’t ask if Waverly wants anything (she doesn’t). He doesn’t think to check if Waverly wants the TV (she does), and that’s just the problem all-round: Champ doesn’t think. She knows nothing that passes between them is deliberately malicious; in fact she's almost certain that his behaviour has never really been intentional. Champ is a product of Purgatory just as much as Waverly is - the town has simply treated them very differently over the years. Champ, effortlessly popular at school and never concerned with anything more than going to rodeos and drinking beer with his buddies, doesn't think that his behaviour might hurt Waverly. He doesn’t think on a plane that doesn’t have him at the centre, because he's never had to. Waverly has to acknowledge that partly she has never encouraged that much change, but now she is at least trying a different tack and it doesn't seem to make any difference. She feels bad to see her resentment growing because Champ has never thought on anything long enough to realise his infidelity and lack of effort could be a problem; this, Waverly thinks, is just the only way he knows.

She won't justify his behaviour but ultimately, she knows a lost cause when she sees one and the longer she looks at their relationship, well - 

When it comes down to it, comparison will kill you, but she can’t help but think about how much happier she’d been a few nights before, exhausted and talking for hours on end with someone miles away, than she was a week later as she sat with her boyfriend in her own living room.

 

 

 

 

 

Gus and Curtis had always spilled praise for Waverly like water from a brook. They'd done their best to lift her up against her early tribulations, and they'd tried to keep her afloat against the tidal wave of Purgatory gossip that clung to her like a shadow for years. 

And Waverly had always done her best to pay that back by being as hassle-free as possible. She worked hard at school, attended her dance classes, and never got home late from cheer practice. 

Sure, she and Chrissy Nedley had gone off to their fair share of parties when they were growing up, but between them they'd always been, above all else, sensible. And Gus had never particularly worried because Waverly had been terrible at lying to them. She'd either feel guilty and tell them about the party the morning after, or she'd state her intentions before she left.

For that reason, her aunt and uncle had loosened the reins and had trusted her to be sensible. The degree of freedom worked and besides, as the Sheriff's daughter, Chrissy had always had to show much more restraint than most kids their age. Between the two of them, their version of teenage 'rebellion' looked pretty tame compared to their classmates. 

And that had always been one of Gus' biggest praises; she'd been calling Waverly her 'honest girl', for as long as she could remember. 

So if she's being truthful now, this isn't the first time she’s maybe, well, _wondered_. About herself and her... _preferences_.

Nicole Haught, with her ironic selfies and preference for the blushing-while-smiling emoji is not the first. 

There had been the girls at school. The ones Waverly thought she wanted to be around, or maybe just be. There were pretty girls who seemed to breeze through life with their perfect hair and their perfect smiles (though Waverly is well aware now that this would have been as much of an illusion as the public image she eventually created of herself). She’d find herself daydreaming about those girls, thinking of how nice they looked, wondering what it would be like to hug them or even to hold their soft hands.

Then, there was that time when she was ten and she’d been forced to watch an _X-Men_ movie in the theatre. The movie really wasn't her thing but Waverly never got invited out with her classmates, so she'd agreed to go. She then proceeded to spend the whole time looking up, transfixed, at Jean. It hadn’t really hit her then, or indeed during the many movies after that one, but it was starting to hit her now.  

She wasn’t really sure how she should feel, or if she should feel anything at all. She seemed to be coming to all of this substantially later in life than most people and that made her feel slightly insecure. A part of her thinks that surely she should have realised by now, but dating Champ for so long had put paid to a lot of that kind of inward-thinking. It had never really occurred to her that things weren’t all as they seemed or that there could be _more_ running just below the surface. She'd grown complacent and settled down, and she'd been actively trying not to rock the boat for a while now without even realising it.

Besides, Purgatory wasn’t exactly rolling out the Pride banners every summer, so it wasn’t really an encouraging atmosphere for that kind of self-exploration. They did possibly have  _one_ gay bar, she thinks for a while. But upon greater reflection and online investigation she discovers that it's just a once-monthly LGBT night at a fringe bar on the edge of town.

And God, _was_ she even gay?

She wasn't going to try and pretend it was just a Nicole Haught thing, because she'd accepted it was a girl thing in general. She'd spent a fraught couple of nights lying in bed trying to work out if that was why things weren't working with Champ. She'd thought of famous people of all genders, trying to put herself to the test. In the end, she'd come to the conclusion that, with Champ, it wasn't a man thing. It was just a Champ thing. 

But that was still the biggest stumbling block, more even than the slight and sudden identity crisis. 

If - and she wasn’t confirming anything yet, even in her own mind - she did have some kind of not-entirely-platonic crush on Nicole, then there was still the matter of her relationship with Champ. She rather thought that the way her mind would spring to Nicole, completely unbidden, said more about her relationship with Champ than it did about Waverly herself. If she were happy with Champ, she wouldn’t be thinking almost longingly of Nicole’s arm around her shoulder instead of Champ’s, of lunch dates with Nicole (actual, real lunch dates in cafes where they could talk, not ‘lunch dates’ in Shorty’s where Waverly brought Champ an order from the kitchen and sat in relative silence while he ate). If things with Champ were working out how they were supposed to, she wouldn’t be imagining someone else’s lips on her throat, trailing kisses down, down, down  -

Jesus. Who the hell was she kidding? She totally had a crush on Nicole.

_Shit_

 

 

 

 

 

 

_ > **From:** Anthony Foster [mailto: anthony.foster@ucalgary.ca ]_  
_ > **Sent:** 31 April 2017 09:57_  
_ > **To:** Waverly Earp  < waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca >_  
_ > **Subject:** Seminar opportunities_  
_ > **Attachment** :  May 2017 seminar brochure.doc _

 

_Dear Waverly,_

_I have been forwarded the attached list of both local and national seminars for the coming month. There is one at the end of the month I think you should seriously consider. I have highlighted it for you. I believe your research is good enough, and after all your hard work you truly deserve a chance to speak at the event. Plus it will look extremely good on your resumé. If travel will be an issue there may be scope for financial aid from the faculty or university, so please don’t rule it out on the basis of distance._

_I look forward to receiving your draft chapter in two week’s time, please let me know before then what you think of the seminar. I hope you’ll go for it._

_If there’s anything you need in the meantime you know where I am._

_Regards,_

_Tony_

_PROF. ANTHONY FOSTER_

_DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY_

_UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY_

_EXT: 6730_

 

 

Waverly opens up the document and scrolls to the bottom, trying to find the particular seminar her mentor is talking about. When she finally locates it, her heart just about jumps into her mouth.

 

 

 

 

  
  
_**WE** : hey!!_  
_**WE** : no worries if you’re busy but i don’t suppose you’re free to talk at all?_  
_**RB** : Not busy, what’s up little Earp?_  
_**WE** : not sure it's something i can text. can i give you a call?_  
_**RB** : Sure! Just give me ten minutes yeah?_  
_**RB** : Just clearing up after dinner._  
_**RB** : I’ll call you in a sec_  
_**WE** : thank you :heart emoji:_

 

 

By the time Rosita calls, Waverly has all but lost her nerve. What if she's reading into this too much? What if it’s all in her head and she's just imagining it? She _is_ really unhappy with Champ right now and it's possible she's projecting.

(It's not possible at all, and Waverly knows as much). 

It's almost tempting to let the phone ring out and say that something just came up. She wouldn’t do that to Rosita though, so she picks up after a few rings.

“Hey Rosita, what’s up?” She’s sort of hoping that, by launching in first, Rosita will go into a big story that’ll give Waverly some thinking space. No such luck.

“Not much, have a bar shift at like nine though. _So_ not looking forward to it. Anyway, what can I do for you?” Rosita’s voice is kind of echoey, and Waverly could swear she can hear water.

“You’re in the bath right now, aren’t you?” She is totally using this as a means of stalling, don’t judge.

“ _What_? I just told you I have a shift in two hours. I need the lavender bath salts to relax me in advance.”

“Please, you’d need something stronger than that.”

“A fair point but, I’m guessing, not why you called. Unless you’re about to become my dealer which would definitely be a surprise and not one I’d be entirely happy about.”

Even from the start, Waverly had never had any ability to build walls when it came to Rosita. Girl saw through everything, stone included.

Waverly pauses, heart hammering in her chest like a God-awful drumbeat.

“Wave? You still there?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m still here. Look, I - ” She breaks off again because _hell_  she doesn’t know how to do this and it’s only Rosita. Rosita, who had been open about her sexuality since the day they met; Rosita who was vocally proud and unabashedly herself. Rosita who, decked in pink; blue; and purple, held Waverly's and let her walk with her during every Calgary Pride since they'd met.

If Waverly can’t have this conversation, then there’s no hope at all.

“Has something happened?” Rosie sounds concerned now. “Is it Champ, did he do something? You need to come round here? You need me to come round _there_? Because you know I’ll just blow off work, they won’t fire me I’m, like, their best employee and frankly if they fired me over one shift they could stick their job up - ”

“Howdidyouknowyoulikedgirls?”

“What?”

Waverly takes a deep breath. “I promise I’m not asking you this because you’re my bi friend. I’m asking you because you’re my _best_ friend. But: how did you know you liked girls?”

There’s a smile in Rosita’s voice when she replies and Waverly can’t be sure, but it sounds affectionate almost. Certainly it's a good kind of smile.

“Honey, I think if you have to ask the question you might already have your own answer. But, in all seriousness, it’s hard to say. I guess I was in my teens and it just kind of became clear? I don’t know. I was, maybe, sixteen when I told my friends? I know it’s not much use to you, but I just knew. I’d always had crushes on girls too, had feelings just like with other people.”

“There wasn’t maybe... a certain girl?”

Again, Rosita is smiling and she’s all soft and gentle when she responds. “Not for me kiddo. But there can be for some people.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah so I don’t really know what else to say right now. There's more but I think I need to take some time out tp think on it. Sorry. Thanks though.”

“No apologies - or thanks - needed here. Take your time dude. I’m around whenever there’s more to be said.” This time, perhaps now the conversation has fully registered, Rosita sounds happy. Like, suspiciously happy.

“What are you smiling for?” Waverly asks playfully because even down the phone she can _tell_. Rosita just gets this look on her face sometimes. Waverly is glad though, as she always is, for Rosita’s straightforwardness, and for the way things never felt weird.

“Okay, look. I’m just gonna be honest and risk overstepping, alright? Because seriously, I’m just glad there might be someone else. When it comes down to it I couldn’t give a flying fuck if they’re a girl or not - but seriously I’m here for you when, or I dunno _if,_ you wanna go there. But Champ doesn’t deserve you and quite frankly I’m glad you’re thinking about other people.”

“You know I haven’t broken up with him though, right?”

“I know hon. But so long as you’re seeing that there are other people out there, y’know?”

“I guess so,” Waverly says, because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to say and quite suddenly she feels the need to change the subject. She grasps for some form of levity. “Thank you,” she adds and although it is sincere, she has a double agenda because she can anticipate the way Rosita will reply.

“ _Psh_ what even for?” Rosita asks innocently, the way she always does when she thinks she’s done something any good friend would do and she's trying to downplay it.

“Thank you for showing 50 percent restraint and only trash-talking Champ when I know it must be literally killing you right now not to ask who the girl is.”

Rosita lets out a loud bark of a laugh. “You _ass_. I’m trying to be nice right now and you do that to me.”

“You’re only mad because it’s true,” Waverly smiles, feeling relieved, because Rosita is forthright but deep down she’s always known when to let someone be evasive.

“Fine. I’m curious as fuck. But I’m also not a total dick and I’m gonna let you deal with that one in your own time.”

“I will go into it more eventually, promise. I just think I need to get my head around it. Right now, I can’t work out if it’s weird, or if it’s only weird because it feels normal.”

“It should feel normal Wave. It should feel like coming home.”

Her words hit Waverly like a freight train because God that’s exactly how it feels and for a moment she has to clear a lump in her throat. Rosita has the tact not to mention it.

“Just tell me one thing, though?” she asks instead.

“Sure.”

“Is she good? For you, I mean.”

“God, Rosie. She’s so good. She’s so many superlatives I don’t have right now.”

“That’s all that matters to me then.”

“Thank you.” This time Waverly means it, all jokes aside.

“It’s what I’m here for. And hey, guess what?”

“What?”

“You don’t have to worry baby,” Rosita coos, able to change her demeanour from gentle to jovial so fast that Waverly sometimes gets whiplash talking to her. “Me and Jeremy will still love you just the way you are.”

“I honestly don’t even know why we’re friends at this point.”

“Yes you do,” she says laughing, voice all singsong and musical.

 _Yeah_ , Waverly thinks. _Yeah I do._

 

 

 

 

  
  
The next couple of weeks are little more than a mundane blur in which Waverly writes, pulls pints, pours shots, sleeps, and begins again. She tries, and fails, not to argue with Champ whenever he has the TV on too loud, or when he tries (and wholeheartedly fails) to drag her away from her work for a moment to ‘switch her brain off’.

She knows that it is an understatement to say that she has the tendency to get a little tense about her studies. Waverly gets pretty bad tunnel vision around deadlines and usually needs saving from herself. But she also knows that Champ’s not trying to distract Waverly to help her de-stress. Rather, with everything going on both externally and internally for Waverly, their sex life has been more or less non-existent. A few times when he’s whinged at her, she’s had to stop herself from asking why he cares so much, when he’s getting more than enough action elsewhere.

On one occasion, it is all she can do stop herself ending things there and then when he simply won’t turn off the XBox for long enough to cook food (or even just order takeout for goodness sake), or even just because it should be obvious that Waverly can’t damn well concentrate with the sound of explosions every twenty seconds. To keep herself from going entirely crazy she gathers her things and storms out. She’s pretty sure she hears him ask when she’ll be back as the door closes behind her. She goes to Gus and Curtis’ place, which has the double effect of staving off some of the guilt she’s been feeling about not calling round enough recently. It’s actually pretty nice to be taken care of for a change, since Gus is already cooking enough dinner for about eleven people and it’s really no trouble for Waverly to take a tiny portion for herself (she never much feels like eating when she’s this stressed). She finishes her final edit whilst there, and just as she finally feels ready to relax, her phone delivers the news she’s been waiting on for what seems like forever:

 

 

 _ > _ **_From:_ ** _Wynonna Earp [mailto:_ _bacondonut@hotmail.com_ ]  
_ > _ **_Sent:_ ** 06 May 2017 17:28  
_ > _ **_To:_ ** _Waverly Earp < _ _w_earp908@gmail.com_ >  
_ > _ **_Subject:_ ** _Wish you were here, nerdface.  
_ _ > **Attachment** : _ DSC20170415.jpg 

_Whattup babygirl_

_Sorry I’ve been off the grid recently but I’ve been in the ass end of nowhere - no wifi or phone signal for like months! I’m in civilization for a little while now, so I need to hear basically everything that’s going on with you._

_Been mooching here, there, and everywhere in Greece for a while, met some real cool people (none as cool as you though, obv) and did some fun shit, but there’s nothing much for me to report - much more excited to hear from you. Don’t keep me waiting too long!!_

_I love youuu!_

_Wynonna x_

 

 

Reading the email, it feels almost like a physical weight has been lifted from her shoulders. Not hearing from Wynonna for months on end was not only worrying, it was downright lonely too. There were very few people she knew and trusted like her sister, and although she understood why Wynonna had decided to leave Purgatory, it didn’t make her absence any less painful. Even if the email is as transparently evasive as ever, it’s evidence that she’s doing what she needs to do in order to recover from the shit being an Earp has thrown her way. Waverly’s heart soars to see that Wynonna looks happy - if a tiny bit sunburnt - in the photo she attaches to her email; her and a tall, muscular man drinking a beer in an almost-generic sunny setting, the background taken up pretty much entirely cloudless blue sky.

Waverly stays in her old childhood room that night, rather than returning home to find Champ asleep on the couch, controller on the floor where he’s dropped it. Having heard from Wynonna and finished her work for now, she had at least cut her immediate problems down from three to one.

She sleeps more easily that night than she has in weeks and when she wakes in the morning it is to the faded memory that she dreamed of loose red waves and brown eyes soft as gossamer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
  
**_ix._ **

**_May 2017; Purgatory, Alberta_ **

 

 _ > **From** : “Nedley, Randy” < randy.nedley@gov.ca >_  
_ > **Sent** : 12 May 2017 08:49_  
_ > **To** : Waverly Earp < waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca >_  
_ > **Subject** : RE: Archival material_           

_Hello Waverly,_

_It’s been a while since you emailed me about your document request, but as I haven’t had the chance to speak to you at Shorty’s, I wanted to check in and see how you’ve been getting on with OPC._

_Regards,_

_RANDY NEDLEY_

_SHERIFF_

_PURGATORY SD_

_STATION 62, 2004 - 20TH STR_

 

 

_ > **From** : Waverly Earp < waverlyearp@ucalgary.ca >_  
_ > **Sent** : 12 May 2017 09:03_  
_ > **To** : “Nedley, Randy” < randy.nedley@gov.ca >_  
_ > **Subject** : RE: Archival material  
> **Attachment** : discussion notes.doc_

 

_Hi Sheriff,_

_Thanks for taking the time to check in with me! OPC have been a bit mixed; they’ve actually misplaced the original documents I wanted but I’ve been dealing with someone called Nicole Haught - a (soon-to-be-qualified) cadet there - and she’s been so helpful. She even answered a few questions on modern-day policing for me. (I've attached a few notes on our discussion as they might be something you're interested in). She seems like she’s on track to be a really great cop - not that I know much about it.  Looks like it’s my good luck to get the cadet at the top of the class!!_

_Thanks again for asking :)_

_Waverly_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

**_x._ **

**_May 2017; Ottawa, Ontario_ **

 

 

It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that Nicole’s final weeks as a cadet are absolutely kicking her ass.

They’ve started gradually phasing her back into field work as her injury heals, which is great on the one hand as Nicole has absolutely had enough of being stuck indoors. It doesn’t suit her at all. But on the other hand, she’s now trying to stay on top of casework, archive work, and her final assessments. So it somehow feels like she’s sprung a third more work than everyone else.

The truth is she’s still somehow nailing it all, and is probably still set to graduate with the highest grades of her peers, not that she’s been keeping tabs because, really, she’s just focussed on keeping her head above water and not forgetting to eat at the same time.

Grocery shopping is one of the many tasks that takes a backseat as she tries to simply get through working all the overtime, and she’s been lucky if she’s managed to wolf down a sandwich or a bag of chips at the end of the day. Her poor diet really hits home when the only thing in her cupboard one evening is two old slices of slightly questionable-looking bread. The fridge is almost entirely empty too, since her flatmate rarely eats anything but takeout pizza.

It is intervention time, even if that means a self-intervention because there's no one else to step in, and despite the exhaustion deep in her bones she drags herself out of the house to one of the late-night stores round the corner. The nights are gradually starting to draw out, and it’s still relatively light for the time of day which makes it a slightly less arduous task.

Tired enough that her head feels like it’s on another planet, Nicole mindlessly throws food into a basket as she meanders round each aisle. She raids what is left of the fruit and vegetable aisle at this time of night, conscious that she hasn’t seen a vegetable in the past week besides the salad leaves she’s been putting in her sandwiches. And, in the interests of a balanced diet, she also stocks up on a metric ton of her favourite chocolate which she justifies by reminding herself that her testing exercise regime is almost entirely back in place.

And she finished the chocolates Waverly sent her a while ago.

The thought of the gift still made her heart dance a little, and she had kept the attached card in pride of place in her room. 

With her mind elsewhere, Nicole is halfway round the store before she realises she has been absently humming along to the song playing gently through the speakers along the wall. It sounds soft and far more pop- _y_ than she’d usually listen to, and it takes her a while to work out where she knows the music from.

_I feel it through my teeth like a fool, that’s me I’m in some Hollywood something, and oh it smells like sugar..._

It is one of the songs Waverly had been listening to while they spoke, the one that had been stuck in Nicole’s head for days after. It is upbeat and bouncy, making Nicole feel cheery while she bags up her groceries at the checkout. She even searches the lyrics on the way home, adding the track to one of her favourite Spotify playlists so she can listen to it properly as she walks.

It reminds her of Waverly, not just because of their video call but also because it has that ineffable sense of optimism and weightlessness that some songs seem to embody, and Nicole thinks that if there was anything to describe the Waverly she had gotten to know, then that was it.

Their messages hadn’t really decreased that much despite the fact they were both competing with deadlines and time constraints. It was nice in one sense, but confusing as hell in absolutely every other.

There is a huge part of her that wants to point black avoid the confusion springing up at the back of her mind, because she definitely does not want to accept that she has a slowly blooming crush on a woman she has never properly met. Nicole is still trying to convince herself that she technically doesn’t even really know Waverly that well, except that it's hard to sustain that lie anymore. 

They've spent countless emails discussing Waverly’s interests and how they relate to her life and now they're on texting terms they've sent an even greater number of texts discussing less professional matters too. Nicole knows how Waverly puts emojis in work-related emails (at least, the ones she sends to Nicole) and she adds about three more exclamation points than necessary at the ends of her sentences. Her emails make Nicole laugh aloud sometimes and what she says always makes Nicole think and reflect. 

There’s almost no doubt in Nicole’s mind at this point that if they lived in the same city, she would have tried her luck and asked Waverly out on a date by now. Even if she sort of suspects Waverly might be straight and she definitely would have disguised it as a platonic not-date instead.

After all, what with apps and the internet half of the (admittedly few and far between) dates Nicole sets up these days start from a few messages online. This situation isn’t _that_ weird, right?

Oh God, it’s totally a bit weird. Not to mention super unprofessional.

The real kicker - so to speak - had come when her doctor had told her she might get the all clear to go back into the field fully in the next few weeks. While she’ll never take the archive job over getting out on the street and actively policing, her heart doesn’t soar like she expected it to at the news. She thinks immediately of the bittersweet outcome that she’ll have less of an excuse to speak to Waverly. Because she still does her level best to seek out excuses to message her; if she finds something in the archive that looks interesting she mentions it to Waverly under the guise of it maybe being useful in her thesis (and twice now, it has been!). If she finds an interesting article online she sends the link over all over. 

Of all the people Nicole could wind up getting a crush on, it had to be the passionate, optimistic, funny girl from a place that was like, at least two thousand miles away.

As far as Nicole could tell, this could never come to anything - they were probably never even going to meet.

The thought is enough to quash the vibe from even the most upbeat of songs.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
At most, Nicole knows she has two weeks left in the archive to find Waverly’s missing documentation, and she throws herself into the task with renewed vigour in spite of every other responsibility she has. It is important to her that she succeeds in this because Nicole Haught wasn’t raised to do things by halves. Also because she wanted to see Waverly’s reaction when she finally found the papers. But mostly the hard work and dedication thing.

She still pours over countless documents whenever she can, rifling (very carefully) through document boxes under the suspicious eye of one of the full-time staff members. Still, there’s no sign of the papers. There remained a department-wide search for them, but it was increasingly muted as people began to speculate that perhaps they hadn’t been returned at all. Nicole had a suspicion that it was just easier to think that then it was to admit a mistake on their end. Nonetheless, there was also a possibility they were right; not all documents had to stay in the archive or the library - students onsite or nearby could check some papers out, Waverly’s among them. Nicole knew as much as anyone that when sleep-deprived, coffee-fuelled, and desperate just to pass a final assessment, it would be easy to misplace something. And just as easy to convince a fellow, equally stressed, friend to mark the papers as returned to the archive.

And then - against all odds - when there is only a week to go before she’s fully field-ready again, and just as she’s resigned herself to failure, she finds them. It maybe should have happened with a bang (and fireworks) but it happens with less than a whimper. She was right in thinking that she wouldn't recognise them because she is half-asleep at her desk and so close to filing them back again when something on the side of one of the pages catches her eye. It is a recent addition by the looks of things, added in pen (plain old biro which she knew wouldn't please the manager) and no more than a string of numbers that could well be a reference code of some kind. Nicole is just wondering if she should ask someone if they knew if the document had been defaced, when she sees a line in the original text matching Waverly’s description from all those weeks ago. Nicole goes through the papers again more closely and, sure enough, it turns out to be her own personal holy grail of discolouring old police documents. Other pages have also been marked, one with what looks like a stamp; just a faded grey circle with a star cutout in the middle. Nicole isn't quite sure why it's there, but she can't bring herself to care. Once again, she finds that she isn't as happy as she thought she'd be, because really all this means is less reason to email back and forth with Waverly. And with her moving away from the archive altogether, there's a strong chance all this could be over for good in spite of their texts.

Nicole wants to lament, but she's close to clocking off and has about half an hour to get across the city to sit a final assignment, so it's not something she can afford to dwell on. She packs the papers safely away in her in-tray for tomorrow, hoping they don't somehow mysteriously disappear before the morning.

 

 

 

 

  
  
**WE** : hey! hope it’s not weird for me to text you about this rather than email, but i couldn't decide if it was work-related enough (it is for me - not so much for you)  
**WE** : anyway i figured i probably shouldn’t send an email, especially if you’re not in the archive as much atm. but i have some exciting news!  
**WE** : at least, i hope you’ll think it’s exciting  
**NH** : Not weird at all to text me, probably a good idea actually as I’m finally getting away from that place a lot more now  
**NH** : One more week and I’ll be in the field again!  
**NH** : (Also I have exciting news too - but you first)  
**WE** : aahhhhh only one week??? that’s awesome, so happy for you :grinning emoji: :grinning emoji:  
**WE** : (and totally not selfishly sad at aaaall that i’ll have to deal with someone else in the archive now - what if they’re less efficient???!!!! :loudly crying emoji:)  
**NH** : Entirely possible. I am amazing.  
**WE** : ass  
**NH** : Rude. Anyway don’t keep me in suspense I want news!  
**WE** : okay, so  
**WE** : i wanted to tell you that the other day my adviser asked me to attend a big seminar and present some of my research (which is super scary but also super awesome that he thinks i’m ready!!)  
**WE** : anyway even though i’m shit scared i’ve agreed to go, and guess what?! it takes place in ottawa!!!!!! so i guess i can buy you that thank you coffee after all!  
**WE** : if you want me to, of course  
**NH** : Oh my God!!!!! Waverly that’s great - congratulations on your place at the seminar.  
**NH** : I’m so happy for you :grinning emoji:   
**NH** : And I’m happy for me and my free coffee - makes aaaall that hard work worthwhile!  
**WE** : i’ve said it before i’ll say it again:  
**WE** : ass :)  
**NH** : Totally kidding!  
**WE** : I know :heart emoji:

 

 

Nicole absolutely tries to be chilled out about this unexpected turn of events, but it proves impossible and all she wants to do is ensure she will actually be around when Waverly visits, even if the idea kind of terrifies her a bit. 

 

 

 **NH** : Sooo, when are you here?  
**WE** : in about two weeks  
**WE** : seminar is the 26th (not a lot of time left to prepare eeek!) but i’ll arrive late on the 25th and leave on the 28th.  
**NH** : Wow that’s perfect timing for me, I’ll still be at the Academy  
**NH** : (Was worrying I might have already been posted elsewhere)  
**NH** : Do you know your details - where you’re staying etc.?  
**WE** : i do…  
**WE** : but haven’t got them with me and can’t remember off the top of my head  
**NH** : Doesn’t matter - just tell me when you know, and also maybe where the seminar will be held/times etc.?  
**NH** : You know, if that's alright...  
**WE** : wait...  
**WE** : you’d want to come?! to my presentation?????  
**NH** : God are you kidding me???  
**NH** : Of course I would!!  
**WE** : :smile emoji: :smile emoji: :smile emoji:  
**WE** : :hearts emoji: :kissy face emoji:  
**NH** : :heart emoji:  
**NH** : Also I’m really sorry but I have to get to a supervisor meeting, text you later?  
**WE** : sure!!  
**WE** : also SHIT i’m so sorry you had news too and i totally took over!!!  
**NH** : No need to apologize! It can totally wait!  
**NH** : Can just tell you in person now, huh?!  
**WE** : you’re honestly too nice to people (me)  
**NH** : Not possible!  
**NH** : Really gotta run, sorry! Catch you later :smile emoji: xxx

 

Even better than seeing Waverly’s reaction over email when she gets the documents, Nicole concludes, would be seeing Waverly’s reaction in person. She makes a mental note to scan and print the documents first thing in the morning, and have them ready and waiting the weekend in question.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
**_xi._ **

**_May 2017; Calgary, Alberta_ **

 

 

Because apparently her faculty isn’t yet in 2017, they require a paper copy and an electronic copy of any submissions (even just draft ones) so Waverly has to make the busride just to courier a wadge of papers to the pigeonholes at the main reception.

In this case, though, she can't bring herself to care. It’s nice to get away from Purgatory from time to time, to remind herself that there's a bigger world out there that she wants to explore someday.

Or, you know, just to spend time somewhere almost no one knows her or her business. It's becoming increasingly clear that she is almost the last in Purgatory to know about Champ’s second life, and it feels good to literally drive away from the frustration and the shame for a while. She’s happy to be out from under the locals’ gaze for a day.  

Besides, things all feel lighter somehow (including the Champ drama - honestly Waverly finally feels over it, and _him_ ), even if it's just in a momentary kind of way. Work is hardly going to let up much, but there's no more anxiety-inducing deadlines for a long while, and the undergrads are all either sitting their exams or preparing to do so. Normally, this would mean invigilation or study groups, but her tutor got her out of any duties on account of her seminar. Granted, the thought of standing up in front of a moderately-sized auditorium of academics and prospective academics has literally been keeping her up at night, but it's tinged with excitement too. She's proud that she's finally ready for the world she's been dreaming about for years.

Her presentation is almost complete, her chapter has been submitted, and the first strains of summer were upon the city: Waverly was officially in full ‘treat day’ mode. Plus she has a lunch date with her two best friends to look forward to.

The early May sunshine is warm on Waverly’s cheeks as she mills about just outside of campus, and she’s glad on balance that she braved a skirt _sans_ tights.  She's been dipping in and out of cute ‘off the main street’-type artisanal stores even though she doesn't really have the disposable income to go too wild. For Waverly, though, ‘wild enough’ looks like a new ring-bound notebook she doesn't need, and a patterned pen to join the legions of others littering every inch of her apartment (unicorn prints man, it's a weakness).

Just as she's paying her eye is drawn to a little tray of tiny cacti and succulents, all planted in what must be the shop owner’s hand-painted pots. They distract her from paying briefly, and it takes her a moment to work out why. She places a distant memory eventually; a small cluster of tiny plants, visible on the windowsill behind Nicole when they spoke.

Waverly wonders briefly if it would be possible to buy one and transport it to her seminar, but assesses that it would probably get crushed in her tiny hold bag (bought especially for the occasion, given that she’s never been on a plane before). It would likely cause issues going through security, too. So instead she asks the cashier if the pots are available on their own, and he fetches one of Waverly’s choosing - all blues and indigos and purples, in a pattern that makes Waverly think of the the sky, or maybe the ocean; deep and powerful and overwhelming.

She gets it all wrapped up at the counter and puts it ever so carefully in her messenger bag, thinking that maybe Nicole can repot an existing plant or even buy a new one especially.

She feels absurdly nervous at the thought of giving Nicole this gift, wondering if it might be a bit weird to have bought it, but it’s nothing compared to how nervous she is at the thought of meeting Nicole. But as with the seminar, the sensation is a mix of nerves and excitement and Waverly knows the latter feeling is winning out. She just hopes Nicole likes the gift.

God, she just hopes Nicole likes _her._

 

 

 

 

  
  
“You ever get the feeling there’s something she’s not telling us?” Rosita nudges Jeremy conspiratorially with her shoulder, tucking her feet up under her on the couch.

“Oh, totally,” Jeremy adds, intentionally louder than necessary, trying to get Waverly’s attention.

“It’s horrible, knowing your friend is just keeping secrets from you. _And_ ignoring you too.”

“ _Heartbreaking_.”

They stare across the table pointedly at Waverly, who eventually realises they’re talking about her and looks up from her phone. Which she totally hasn’t been using to text Nicole the details for her seminar.

“What?” she asks dumbly, making a show of locking the phone and putting it on the table. Nicole had had to go anyway. She exchanges it for her coffee, wrapping both hands around the mug to try and warm her ever cold fingers.

“We were just saying our friendship is on the rocks, what with you ignoring us on our coffee date,” Rosita says faux-dramatically and flashing Waverly a conspiratorial look. Waverly glares pointedly at her, and in response Rosita smiles around the straw she’s been chewing for the last few minutes.

“Seriously Waves, I thought this was sacred time. I'm hurt,” Jeremy adds, putting a hand to his heart.

Waverly rolls hers eyes. “Such drama queens, seriously.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Rosita replies, and silences Waverly’s objections with a single raised eyebrow. She does have a fair point.

“So are we not supposed to be asking who’s got you smiling down at your phone like that?” Jeremy asks, and Waverly doesn’t miss the subtle change on Rosita’s face.

Because this is exactly the kind of thing Rosita herself would have mentioned at least ten minutes ago, but she’s been extremely restrained since their recent half-conversation. They’ve barely spoken since because Waverly hasn’t really had time to revisit the whole ‘I might be bi’ thing with her, and Jeremy doesn’t even have the first clue yet but it just seems like a lot to unpack on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.

Waverly takes an overlong sip of coffee, actually kind of enjoying dragging the question out.

“If you mean the person who's been helping me get the last of my thesis documentation, then you're way off base,” she tells them with a self-satisfied smirk, ignoring the little voice in her head that's calling her a liar. She _is_ talking to Nicole after all. “I mean, I'm happy they’re so helpful and all, but we’re keeping it pretty profesh.”

_Liar liar liar._

Both Rosita and Jeremy react together, with equal force but in opposite manners: celebration (Jeremy) and commiseration (Rosita). Waverly understands instantly.

“You guys took bets? _Seriously?_ You're the worst.”

“How else were we going to decide who was taking the first year lecture at the start of next semester?” Jeremy asks, turning when a barista calls out the number for his food order.

“There were other ways,” Waverly calls after him, before throwing Rosita a dirty look. Rosita ignores it and begins dismantling her plastic cup, getting at the last of her whipped cream.

“I still haven’t broken up with Champ you know,” Waverly points out, half-shocked at how easy it would be to end that statement with the word ‘yet’.

“Girl, come _on_. It’s just a matter of time. You deserve to get back out there.”

“If you want to, of course,” this is Jeremy, returning with an ostentatiously large sandwich. He catches Waverly eyeing it up as he sits back down. “Cheese” he tells her pointing at the end of the sub, “besides if you want food there's plenty up there you can _buy_.”

“I can take it out, I'm not fussy. Anyway no one needs a sandwich that enormous.”

“It's not a case of ‘need' Wave. The heart wants what the heart wants.”

Rosita shoves Jeremy, hard enough that he almost drops the packet of sauce he's been negotiating with, right as the corner comes off.

“Hey! Watch it!! What was that even for anyway?”

“You know,” Rosita says darkly, “I can't be listening to you being a walking meme 24/7 without some form of response.”

Waverly laughs as the two of them squabble, glad to have changed the topic from her love life. She had thought she was getting there in figuring everything out, but the idea of breaking up a relationship that she’d given the better part of a decade to was more daunting than she could really explain. And, granted, she wasn’t happy and she couldn’t leave things indefinitely. But she was still wracked with self-doubt, liking girls felt so new (and yet simultaneously not new at all), and all she really knew was that she liked Nicole enough that it had been like seeing all the faults in her current relationship carved out in sharp relief.

It is taking all of her willpower not to break things off with Champ right before her trip so that when she gets back it can be like a clean slate - and not at all because she’ll be seeing Nicole - but she deserves better than some half-baked argument between now and tomorrow evening. She deserves an explanation and, no matter how much she knows already, the truth (if she gets it) will weigh on her mind and ruin her trip.

Rosita catches her eye and flashes her a look (“ _you sure you're good?”)_ . Waverly nods and gives her a tiny wink (“ _of course_ ”).

Neither is convinced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this was a decent continuation of Chapter 1 for you guys - if you have even just a couple of seconds please drop me a comment letting me know how you felt about the chapter. It really is most appreciated. In fact I was completely taken aback by all the positive feedback on the previous chapter - so once again thank you all so much. It truly means a lot
> 
> Thank you too everyone who was cheerleading on twitter - if you want to chat on there I'm usually lurking around. Fine me at [angiemartineIIi](https://twitter.com/angiemartineIIi) and the associated moodboard, picspam thingmajig is [here](https://twitter.com/angiemartineIIi/status/902349863593136128). The tumblr link is [here](jillianholtzsmann.tumblr.com/post/164733455178) but I'm not around on there very often at all. 
> 
> The song referenced here was _Kick_ by Robyn Dell'Unto, aka the wonderful artist behind the song _Common_ in the au scene between Waverly and Nicole at the Sheriff's Office. I checked out her album after the episode and would highly recommend you guys do too!
> 
> Finally, just as a head's up, I will do my best to get the final chapter up asap, but I'll be on holiday from Thursday - away until earpercon in London in two weeks. If anyone's going to the convention, message me and come say hi once it's on! I'm awkward as hell in person but I do love to chat. So apologies if the next chapter takes until then (I promise I'll try my best not to leave it that long!) - I would make excuses but I hope that crying over the cast members, and probably at Dominique specifically, is enough! 
> 
> In the meantime, thank you again for reading, it really does mean so much to me!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there may be meetings and oh-so platonic not-dates it's just that they're totally on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I somehow managed to write this in between flights over the last few days and wanted to get it posted for you guys.
> 
> Also, the eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed the increase in chapter numbers. The final part became too long and didn't really lend itself to a logical split. Am I happy with how I divided this up? No. Have I done it anyway? Evidently yes. 
> 
> Basically, this chapter is the usual absurd length from your friendly neighbourhood over-writer, the new final chapter will be a brief 3k "epilogue" of sorts. 
> 
> Anyway notes and credits at the end - I hope you guys enjoy the fluff that follows!!

**_xii._ **

**_May 2017; Ottawa, Ontario_ **

 

 

Nicole is running late, because _of course she is._

Because of course they’re in a tutorial and Carter is doing that thing where he asks a billion questions no one else wants the answers to, thereby extending the meeting by a completely unnecessary twenty minutes. Half the group, Nicole foremost among them, are shooting daggers at him because, Christ, it’s a Friday afternoon and those not on duty want to go home. Even those on duty are getting restless because if they’re much later then they’ll have to skip their coffee run and at this stage in their training caffeine is like nectar and no one is really surviving without it.

So Nicole misses her usual bus home and winds up a full half an hour behind schedule which just about leaves her in utter chaos. She’d had these grand plans to grab a bite to eat so her stomach doesn’t start growling loudly in a silent hall and, even more than that, she had wanted to make an effort and look nice for Waverly’s talk (or just for Waverly if she’s being completely honest). But with her new time constraints it is all she can manage to shower, throw on some semi-nice clothes, apply a bit of concealer, and wing a prayer upwards that her hair dries nicely on the way.

The conference had started at lunchtime with Waverly lined up as one of the final few speakers, or so she’d said the other day. Nicole would always have joined late and missed most of the talks, even if she had been able to keep to her own schedule, but now she’s even later and she can almost feel her blood pressure rising. As she hops on yet another bus, this time to the university, she has nightmare visions of causing some disturbance midway through Waverly’s presentation and throwing her off her game. And, with that in mind, she’s not actually above running full pelt through the streets at peak commuter time once the bus drops her off, which entirely negates the fact she had a shower to freshen up since she arrives a heavy-breathing, sweaty mess.

But, she makes it there almost on time (after one brief detour as she gets lost on campus) and that’s - probably - what’s important.

Still, the room is dimmed when she arrives and she’s struggling to pick out a seat somewhere at the back where she won’t disturb anyone. She notes that the room seems pretty packed and, perhaps absurdly, feels a rush of excitement for Waverly which makes her remind herself - for the umpteenth time that week - that she doesn’t actually _know_ Waverly well enough to be feeling any of these things.

Eventually, she has to settle for a spot four rows from the front, mercifully next to the aisle so she doesn’t have to shunt people out of their seats momentarily. Finally sat down, she can look to the front and to -

God, _Waverly_.

Professional pictures and video chats have nothing on seeing Waverly in person, even from the fourth row of a darkened room. It is almost surreal seeing her in person after these past few months, but it’s surreal in an almost ethereal way. Standing up front in a truly beautiful floral dress and tailored blazer, Waverly is illuminated by the soft lighting and the glow of the screen behind her, currently projecting her name and the title of her talk. She’s already speaking as Nicole tunes in, but it’s a struggle to focus solely on her words.

She talks with her hands, something Nicole had already picked up on briefly, and even in the introductory stages there’s passion written all over her face and it sort of takes Nicole’s breath away. That’s always been a draw for her in friends and lovers; enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter whether it was for a career or a political cause or even just a TV show, Nicole had always found herself drawn to people who cared enough to get passionate and, _Jesus wept_ , it was like she was magnetised to Waverly Earp.

Waverly, who can’t stop smiling as she starts to share her research; Waverly, whose eyes are literally shining with the sheer love of her subject, who had been texting Nicole during her lunch hour to say she was so nervous she might throw up, but who couldn’t seem more at ease than she did in that moment.

Nicole wondered if this was Waverly’s ‘Academy’: if she felt the way Nicole had the instant she set foot in the Police College. She hoped, briefly, that she looked half so engaged at any one time during her training, because Waverly looked like she’d just come home.

For the entire duration of Waverly’s talk Nicole hardly dares to blink in case she misses something, and it’s like the whole audience is held, rapt, by the woman in front of them. A pin dropping in that room while Waverly spoke would have been akin to a lightning strike which, coincidentally, was how Nicole felt down to her very bones; thunderstruck and alive, _thrumming_ , with electricity. And Nicole has never been to one of these things before, but the applause from the audience when Waverly concludes feels above and beyond (Nicole herself would have jumped to her feet if she could).

Judging by the awed look on Waverly’s face, the applause was unexpected.

The lights come up on the audience slightly as the crew prepare the transition between lecturers, and as Waverly, looking slightly dazed now, prepares to walk off something favourable in the elements align and, impossibly, she catches Nicole’s eye.

There’s no other word for it, Waverly _beams_ at her (no, seriously, she lights up like the goddamn sun itself) and Nicole’s stomach twists and, if she wasn’t before, she’s an absolute goner in that instant.

They’re still clapping, and Nicole makes sure to double her applause, grinning at Waverly to show her just how she felt.

Still smiling, she tips a wave at Nicole before heading off to her seat.

All too soon the lights dim again, and Nicole settles in for the remaining lecture and the closing remarks.

She might be biased as hell, but neither of them hold a candle to Waverly.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hard not to feel incredibly out of place, milling about in a University building lobby amongst a huge group of academics when Nicole hasn’t studied a scrap of history in years.

Plus, she really has no idea whether she should actually stay or not.

On the one hand she has no expectation that she’ll see much of Waverly tonight (they’ve already discussed this, as Waverly had told her she’d spend much of her evening networking. She had asked that Nicole instead show her some of the city on Saturday, after her shift). On the other hand, Nicole feels that if she just disappears she’ll seem disinterested. Plus even a few moments with Waverly would be nicer than nothing. So she hangs around, accepting a plastic cup in the shape of a wine glass, filled with a surprisingly nice rosé - more for something to do than through any desire to drink it.

She sips at it sparingly (it’s been a while since she’s had much to drink and she will _not_ lose it after one glass of wine thank you very much), and wanders to the edge of the room. It’s been a long-ass day at work and she feels exhausted, but she’d have waited all night if Waverly had said so. Instead, what she had said was: ‘ _please don’t feel you have to stay (or, you know, come at all - I know how busy you are!). These things can get pretty stuffy and boring after the actual talks are over. I’d love to come and see you but I can’t promise anything so, seriously, you’re better off at home in bed with chocolate and a movie!!’_

Nicole’s just about thinking that she’ll follow that advice when, suddenly she sees Waverly. She gives her a small smile, which she hopes says ‘please don’t let me interrupt’, but Waverly heads over almost impossibly quickly and before Nicole really has time to register what’s going on, she’s suddenly overwhelmed by her.

“Nicole! Oh my _God_ ,” Waverly throws herself into a hug (pretty much how Nicole imagines she throws herself into everything), and all Nicole knows is how soft her skin is, how cold her hands are, how her hair smells of coconuts.

Nicole hugs back, because it just seems so Waverly to give one of those long, full-body hugs right away, and not to awkwardly bump shoulders for a moment or two. But then Waverly seems to realise what she’s doing and pulls back suddenly.

“Shoot, sorry. Personal space,” she grimaces apologetically and adds, by way of justification, “I just can’t believe we’re both here!”

“Me neither,” Nicole confesses with a laugh, still a little shell-shocked at having Waverly real and solid in front of her.

“God, I can’t believe you came to my talk - thank you!”

Inwardly, Nicole melts as she thinks that _damn, she even_ speaks _with all those extra exclamation points_. Mercifully, Waverly seems oblivious to Nicole’s internal crisis as she keeps speaking. Her words tumble out a little haphazardly, as though she’s drunk on the excitement and the environment, and shit maybe she’s also a little bit actual-drunk too. It’s hard for Nicole to say.

“And you even stuck around, _seriously_ you didn’t have to do that! It can’t be that much fun right now.”

Nicole dismisses her concern with a wave of her hand. “I’m glad I came, you were completely brilliant!”

She doesn’t miss how Waverly’s cheeks colour further at that and the way the blush spreads adorably to her neck.

“You really thought so?”

“Are you kidding? Me and everyone else in the room.”

Waverly looks a little overwhelmed at that, and for a moment she doesn’t say anything but she holds Nicole’s gaze. Nicole finds herself staring back, because Waverly looks somewhere between lost and coy as she drags her bottom lip between her teeth and _shit_. Nicole had been more or less convinced Waverly was straight but the way she’s looking at Nicole has every bell ringing in her brain right now.

Just as Nicole opens her mouth, fumbling for something - _anything_ \- to say, a man in a tragically stereotypical tweed jacket appears at Waverly’s elbow.

“Ms. Earp? I’m so sorry to interrupt but I must dash soon and I really couldn’t leave without…” he launches into a glowing commentary on Waverly’s research. Waverly throws Nicole an apologetic look, and in response Nicole quickly shakes her head ( _don’t worry_ ).

“Tomorrow?” she mouths at Waverly, miming that she’ll text her later. This causes Waverly’s expression to brighten substantially and she nods before allowing herself to be lead away.

Not entirely unsinfully, Nicole watches her leave before downing the rest of the wine and handing her ticket stub in at the cloakroom.

She has absolutely no intention of wearing her coat, but every intention of taking a cold shower as soon as she gets home because the slightest proximity to Waverly had left her feeling like her blood was simmering through her veins.

She was going to need a lot more prayers if she was going to make it through a whole afternoon alone with Waverly without it boiling over entirely, but if that was how she was going to go - then so be it.

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole had arranged the early shift on Saturday, largely to accommodate Waverly, and arriving at four in the morning was absolutely always a bust. The best she could hope for were the remnants of a drunken fight (and those were always terrible anyway; two or more slurring, spaced out dudes throwing mistimed punches and trying not to hurl their guts up over their own shoes). Even then usually all that was left was the paperwork or even signing the brawlers out again by nine o’clock. 

The shift is always like a graveyard, but it physically can’t go any slower for Nicole than it does that day.

She practically bolts from the desk when the teams change over at midday, beelining straight for her locker and her spare set of clothes.

After a bit more primping than she would normally bother with, she speeds out the door, still slinging her rucksack onto her back as the door clatters shut behind her.

Much like the day before it is unseasonably hot, and when Nicole hops off her bus and rounds the street corner she sees that Waverly is waiting, as planned, outside her hotel, wearing a flowery crop top and short, _short_ cutoffs. Her long hair (so much longer than Nicole had appreciated when she saw Waverly down a screen) is braided in a rope around the side of head, and she looks so beautiful in the sunlight it makes Nicole’s chest ache.

Engrossed in something on her phone, she doesn’t spot Nicole right away and Nicole makes sure to greet her early enough that there’s no awkward startled moment.

Waverly sees Nicole and again she smiles.

As soon as they are close enough, Waverly greets her with another hug much like the night before (and much like the night before it leaves Nicole feeling as though a jolt of electricity has passed from Waverly’s body to her own). She smells, Nicole notes, like suncream and sugar and citrus body spray, and that might just have become Nicole’s new favourite combination.

At the last minute, Waverly adds a tiny, chaste kiss to Nicole’s cheek which does absolutely nothing whatsoever for Nicole’s composure. The only saving grace is that when Waverly pulls away her own cheeks are slightly pink again, and it seems to have little to do with the weather.

“Are you ready to head off?” Nicole asks, feeling suddenly and uncharacteristically shy and self-conscious.

“Sure,” Waverly responds brightly, letting Nicole lead the way.

“Okay so confession time,” Nicole says as they walk, “I may have been here like a year but I actually haven’t done all that much exploring. Work kind of doesn’t let up, so I haven’t really had all that much time to check out too much of the city.” ( _Or all that many people to do so with,_ she doesn’t add).

Waverly signals with her hand that it doesn’t matter. “Oh it’s fine. I live in a tiny backwater town where everyone knows each other - and I mean that literally, not figuratively.”

This surprises Nicole, who had always made the assumption that Waverly lived in Calgary. She says so.

“Oh no that’s just my nearest university town,” Waverly explains and then pauses. It causes Nicole to glance at her as they walk in step, and she catches a look on Waverly’s face that she can’t quite read. “Actually, “I’ve never even left before now, except to go to Calgary which is only a busride away. I bet that sounds so boring and insular, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all,” Nicole says quickly, although she couldn’t quite imagine never having taken the time to explore the world a bit for herself. “If you know where you want to be, why try and fix something that’s not broken.”

“Oh, Purgatory’s definitely in need of a few fixes, but it’s what I’ve always known and I do like it there. I don’t know if that makes a lot of sense.”

For a moment, Nicole feels a jolt at the word ‘ _Purgatory’_ as a million questions floating round her head from the past week suddenly find answers. She recovers quickly, though, because she had promised herself she wasn’t going to do this while Waverly was here.

Waverly mistakes Nicole’s silence and adds, “I bet you’ve done loads of travelling, though.”

“A bit,” Nicole admits. “I took a bit of time out between graduating college and moving here, because I never really took any kind of break after high school.”

Waverly asks, so Nicole tells her all about her time in South America and her subsequent trip to the States. Her travelling mostly involved hiking excursions; Machu Picchu, La Ciudad Perdida, the Colombian Andes, and a part of the Galapagos. She glosses over these briefly and leaves out the other locations, trying not to be _that_ person, but tells Waverly a  bit instead about her time in the US - mostly her two-month hike along a middle section of the CDT. She'd ended her time on the trail in Idaho, and slowly made her way to Nevada for outdoor climbing at Red Rock.

(Granted, she leaves out the part about getting married in Vegas - it hardly seem like the time). She mentions a few other countries she’s seen with her family, or on one occasion with her old soccer team, but would much rather know more about Waverly than speak too long about herself.

They’re too close to Nicole’s intended destination to justify the bus and so they fill their walk by chattering away - questions about family, hometowns, favourite pastimes; all ‘getting to know you’ topics to help fill in some of the blanks.

Nicole’s idea is to spend some time inside for the warmest part of the day (Nicole’s skin and the sun do not have a great history of agreement), so that they can do the standard sightseeing fare in the mid-afternoon. Nicole explains this as they arrive back at the University, and Nicole hopes this will be a well-thought out destination.

She points out the building across the road, signed _Musée d’antiquités gréco-romaines_.

“I know it’s not your thesis topic, but I think you mentioned once that you could speak Latin so I thought maybe you’d like…” Nicole trails off, suddenly unsure. “I hope it doesn’t seem too much like work.”

Waverly’s eyes light up with excitement; the literal embodiment of the phrase ‘like a kid in a candy store’.

“This is _perfect_ Nicole- thank you.”

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out that Waverly knows a lot about Classical history, not that this particularly surprises Nicole. The collection they visit is small, but they spend a good hour and a half there because Waverly has something to say about almost every item. Nicole asks her as many follow-up questions as she can, partially because she’s interested but partially because she doesn’t think she’ll ever tire of the light in Waverly’s eyes when she talks about the past. It is even more dazzling this close up. 

At one point, Waverly sees an artefact which particularly excites her and she grabs at Nicole’s wrist to get her attention (not that it had truly left Waverly for the past hour). Waverly’s hands are impossibly soft and she’s so distracted by the display case for a moment that she doesn’t let go. Only once she’s finished telling Nicole about the significance of the tiny coin beneath the glass does she seem to realise that her thumb is skating over the pale skin of Nicole’s inner wrist. She withdraws her hand like she’s been burned and, if the way Nicole’s skin seems to tingle is anything to go by, it’s possible she has been.

They leave not too long after that, both of them seemingly craving an outdoors space where they don’t feel like they’re struggling for air.

The temperature outside doesn’t really help matters, so they stop off for ice cream in lieu of lunch, which is how Nicole learns that Waverly is vegan; that is, by her apology that she’ll need to find another place after Nicole suggests her favourite ice cream parlour by the river.

Nicole eschews her own preference, and finds a vegan alternative nearby via Google, and adds ‘has been a vegetarian since she was six but switched to veganism a few years ago’ to her mental list of things she now knows about Waverly Earp.

Waverly won’t let Nicole pay for her ice cream, insisting that she still owes her a coffee and that this will have to be the next best option since they’re both trying to cool off. Reluctantly, Nicole accepts - not really accustomed to having people make small gestures like that for her.  

As the day gradually cools (although the air between them doesn’t seem to follow suit), Nicole ensures Waverly gets a good mix of tourist trap and local haunt; they check out the outdoor art (“you probably can’t come to Ottawa and not say you saw the spider”), and go to the Supreme Court and Parliament Hill via the canal. They wander briefly around the historic building and take the free tour round the Peace Tower which, from the top, provides a pretty impressive panoramic view of the city. It somehow looks more resplendent in the dying afternoon sun than Nicole has ever seen it before. It probably has something to do with the company.

Waverly takes a few photos of the city, mentioning that her aunt, uncle, and sister might like to see them, and snaps a selfie of the two of them with the city behind them and the hearts filter around their heads.

Both of their stomachs grumble by the time they reach the bottom of the tower again and, after a brief rearrangement of their dinner plans (given the vegan information), they catch a bus across town to a restaurant Nicole enjoys. They sit in relative silence, their legs pressed together from thigh to knee on the too-small seats and Nicole could practically feel the heat of Waverly’s bare skin through her jeans as they wilt in the heat of the packed-out bus.

It’s strange how comfortable it all feels, until Waverly’s phone rings and her demeanour visibly changes.

“Sorry,” she sighs, “I’ll have to get this.” She picks up the phone with an unenthusiastic greeting, flashing Nicole an apologetic look. The expression changes to irritation after only a moment listening to the voice down the other end.

Privacy is hard to come by on packed public transport, and even though she feels as though she shouldn’t be listening, Nicole can’t really help but hear Waverly’s one-sided conversation

“It’s because I’m not there, Champ.” When Waverly is irritated, Nicole notes, her voice becomes more clipped, the words more staccato.

“I’m not at the flat because I’m not in Purgatory right now, I told you this.”

 _Pause_.

“Maybe because you weren’t listening?”

_Long pause._

“I feel like I probably wouldn’t have forgotten to tell you I was getting on a plane for the first time in my life to go to Ottawa.”

_Pause._

“Fine. If you say so.”

“A seminar.”

“A _seminar_. Like, where a bunch of students share their research.” She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I practiced my talk the other night? In front of you? Remember I was super nervous?”

“While you were on the XBox, yes.”

_Tangibly angry pause._

“No. N- Champ. It was last night. My speech was last night.”

“It went fine.” ( _Better than fine,_ Nicole thinks. _You were extraordinary._ )

“The flight’s tomorrow morning.” ( _Unfortunately_ , Nicole adds to her internal running commentary, wishing Waverly could have stayed a little - or a lot - longer).

“Checking out the city.”

“Nicole.” Absurdly, the sound of Waverly saying her name causes Nicole to start slightly.

“ _Nicole_ . She’s been helping me with my source material. No. _No_ the police officer. We’ve been talking outside of work and wanted to meet up. I’ve told you all about her? As in, I’ve mentioned her quite a few times?”

Nicole’s mind rushes: _she has?!_

 _Pause_.

“Because I remember telling you.”

Waverly sighs again. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be home tomorrow, come round at like five okay? I need to talk to you anyway. Yeah. Yeah you too. Bye.”

Waverly hangs up and for a moment doesn’t meet Nicole’s eye. It bothers Nicole instantly that Waverly seems to think that she is the one who has something to be embarrassed about.

Nicole bumps Waverly’s shoulder with her own and gradually Waverly brings her gaze up to meet Nicole’s.

“This is our stop,” Nicole says gently, offering a soft smile and hoping she can pour every _‘you don’t have to be embarrassed’_ and _‘there’s no judgement here_ ’ and _‘it’s gonna be ok_ ’ into that one single expression. For a moment she isn’t sure it works, but eventually Waverly smiles back and they gather their things and make their way to the front of the bus as it slows to a stop, their steps awkward against the motion of the vehicle.

Of course, the truth is that Nicole _is_ passing judgement but only on the guy that’s supposed to be calling himself Waverly’s boyfriend. Sure, Nicole is biased and has always had a tendency for weakness around pretty girls, but this guy doesn’t know how lucky he is and, by the sounds of things, he definitely doesn’t deserve someone as wonderful as Waverly. She tries not to think of all the things she’d do differently, because it’s a pointless comparison. Nicole is still partially convinced Waverly is straight, and she’s clearly decided to try and make it work with this guy.

Crush or not, Nicole just plain and simple likes Waverly, wants this to at least be a friendship that lasts. She has to be supportive.

They walk towards the restaurant Nicole has picked out, and when they are halfway there Waverly says quietly,

“Turns out I should probably be listening to random almost-strangers when they give out therapy.”

Waverly says it so sadly that Nicole’s heart half breaks there and then, but she also can’t help but laugh a little as she remembers that early hours gaffe from Waverly. She’d been so shocked to receive that email, and even more shocked when her fingers seemed to type out her response immediately and without any conscious thought from her brain.

“Like I said, I’m bad with relationship advice. It’s pretty much always just ‘dump them’.”

“No, no,” Waverly says, still thoughtful but biting back a smile as she shared the memory with Nicole. “Your advice was good. I just didn’t listen.”

They reach the restaurant and slow to a stop outside.

“Hey, look. It’s gonna be okay. You can take your time to figure out what exactly it is that you want. I know everything feels kind of rushed right now, but it doesn’t have to be.” Nicole reaches out a hand to touch Waverly’s arm in what is supposed to be a comforting gesture. She forgets, however, the current that seems to pass through them every time their skin meets. The skin of Waverly’s bare arm is warm and oh so soft, covered in pale, downy hairs.

Waverly’s eyes dart down to the spot Nicole touches, then quickly up to Nicole’s face. Her expression tells Nicole she is searching for something as her eyes rove Nicole’s face before eventually meeting Nicole's own gaze. It makes Nicole feel exposed, laid bare under Waverly’s bright, perceptive eyes but Nicole doesn't want to look away.

After a beat too long to be entirely comfortable, they both catch themselves staring and Nicole breaks the physical contact.

She clears her throat a little, because it feels stuck on the air that runs too thick between them. To stop her hands fidgeting she opens the door and gestures for Waverly to pass.

“We should, uh. We should go inside.”

 

 

 

 

 

Wine. 

That is what this situation needs. A small amount of alcohol, for social purposes.

Waverly suggests they share a bottle when the server takes their order and Nicole agrees quickly, letting Waverly choose a middle of the road white. She isn't fussy what she drinks right now, she just needs something with a slight kick to it.

Things weren't awkward per sé, but something had shifted with the look that passed between them earlier. It was like they'd been jolted out of orbit, stuck in deep space as they tried to regain a sense of direction.

But then again, Nicole thinks as their starters are finished and the wine starts to take effect, it doesn’t really feel as though they’ve been flung into nothingness. It feels like they’re on new paths entirely, ones that run parallel and close enough that they could reach out and touch the other at any time.

And, when the server comes to collect their empty plates, Waverly does exactly that.

She shifts in her chair to give the waiter more room to clear away, thanking him as he passes by. She leans forward and her knee bumps into Nicole’s under the table. Waverly apologises absently to her, but makes no effort to move her leg away and so her shin remains pressed against Nicole’s even though there’s no definitive reason why it should be.

“So, I have something to show you,” Nicole says as soon as the server has left them, but Waverly speaks at exactly the same time -

“Oh! I nearly forgot - I have something for you.”

They laugh, and it also comes out in unison.

“You first,” Waverly says as Nicole replies,

“You go.”

They laugh again, Nicole feeling absurd, like a teenager even. “Okay,” she says slowly, to avoid speaking over Waverly again. “Third time lucky. You go ahead.”

Waverly checks she’s sure, before scrabbling round her satchel for something.

“Okay, well don’t get too excited because I’m on a student budget and I had to get it over on the plane,” Waverly announces, clearly nervous behind a fairly well-held facade as she draws out a little parcel, wrapped up with blue tissue paper and a bit of brown twine.

“You didn’t have to bring me anything,” Nicole exclaims, slightly baffled even at the thought of Waverly doing so.

“Well, you’re being so hospitable today and you’ve helped so much with my thesis - so much more than was required of you. Besides, if I’m being honest it’s actually just that I saw this and thought of you, so - ”

“You thought of me?” Nicole echoes, unable to stop the grin that blooms on her face. It is the kind of grin that threatens to leave an ache in her cheeks if she holds it too long.

(She wants to hold it forever).

“Of course,” Waverly replies, perhaps a little more seriously than either anticipated. She says it like she thinks of Nicole often and, in spite of trying so hard not to get her hopes up, Nicole is starting to wonder if maybe she does.

Waverly blushes again and adds, “like I say, it’s nothing exciting. It’s probably dumb, actually.”

She holds the little parcel out and their fingers brush as Nicole takes it from her.

“It’s from you, so of course it’s exciting,” Nicole insists, untying the string and pulling apart the tissue paper and a bundle of bubble wrap beneath.

The tiny flowerpot is weighty in her palm, made of proper painted terracotta and not the flimsy plastic Nicole usually buys her plants in. It’s painted like an indigo twilight and almost makes Nicole think of _Starry Night_ , the way the colours twist and twirl together.

“They were behind you on your windowsill that night we spoke,” Waverly explains, in that self-conscious gift-giving way. “Your plants I mean; all the little cacti. And they were selling plants in the shop I was in, but I couldn’t pack one. I thought the pot could be fun if you got another, or if you wanted to rehome one you already have. Like I say, it’s nothing really but um, I hope you like it.”

“I love it, thank you Waverly,” Nicole says - that mile-wide grin back on her face. “Blue’s my favourite, too.”

“It is?!” Waverly brightens immediately, shoulders lifting at Nicole’s reaction.

“Definitely. And this will get pride of place at the window, I promise.” She packs the pot back up in its protective wrapping and places it very carefully in the top of her rucksack, fishing out the envelope she’d packed earlier at the station and wishing bitterly that she had something better to give to Waverly.

But then, knowing Waverly and actually seeing her in her student element, Nicole has a sneaking suspicion this is probably going to count as a ‘gift’ of sorts.

“ _So_ , now I feel like kind of an asshole for not getting you a proper gift,” she begins and Waverly shakes her head quickly to dispel the notion. “But I _think_ , this is still gonna be pretty exciting. I could have told you a week ago, but I was being selfish and kind of wanted your reaction firsthand.”

She presents Waverly with the envelope with a slight flourish and watches as Waverly, looking intrigued, slips the sheaf of photocopied pages half-out. Realisation spreads slowly over Waverly’s face.

“Oh my God, Nicole. Are these?” Waverly eyes dart across the top of the first page at warp speed, an absent smile starting to play at her lips.

“Yep, that’s them,” Nicole says, laughing slightly at the look on Waverly’s face.

“You found them?!”

“I wasn’t leaving that archive if I didn’t, they’d have dragged me from my desk still in my wheely chair.”

Waverly laughs at the deliberate, feigned drama in Nicole’s voice.

“So _gallant_. God, thank you. These are gonna be so important to my final thesis.”

“You shouldn’t be thanking me, I was literally only doing my job.”

Nicole can see how much Waverly wants to read the records there and then, but instead she tucks the envelope securely into her bag for later. She repeats her thanks, about three times actually, before falling silent, still wearing a big smile on her face.

“Hey so actually I can let you into a secret about finding those papers now.” Nicole doesn’t mean to say this, but the wine has made her bolder.

“Oh yeah?” Waverly takes a sip from her own glass and leans in conspiratorially.

“It actually made me pretty sad when I found them.”

Waverly’s brow furrows in genuine confusion, and it’s kind of adorable. “How come?”

“Because it means I have less of an excuse to email you while I’m at work. Especially now I’m officially cleared for the field again, I won’t be in the archive at all.”

Waverly casts her eyes briefly down, then back up to meet Nicole’s again.

“Oh. That _is_ sad.”

Nicole could kick herself for bringing the mood down, and struggles for something to say to lighten the atmosphere again.

“But,” she says, drawing the word out, “the good news is, you _promised_ me I’d get to read parts of your thesis and I hope you’re not in the habit of reneging on your promises.”

It works and Waverly laughs quietly, putting her hand on her heart.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. _Officer_.”

 

 

 

 

 

They pass the rest of the meal as they started it, in high spirits that only climb higher thanks to half a bottle of wine each, plus a final glass. It is growing dark outside by the time they split a dessert, both too full to manage one on their own. 

Just before the server brings them the check, Waverly excuses herself to visit the bathroom and, out of habit, Nicole plucks her phone out of her pocket while she waits.

There is an email in her work inbox which makes her stomach knot as she skim reads it quickly. The contents are both overwhelmingly exciting and painfully nerve-wracking.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Waverly making her way back to the table, and grapples briefly with the idea of sharing what’s going on with her right now. It feels too premature though, and when Waverly asks if she’s okay, Nicole quickly locks her phone and insists that everything is fine.  

(And, honestly, when Waverly smiles at her like _that_ , everything really is fine).

They spend a few minutes playfully fighting over who should pay, before eventually splitting the bill because it was obvious neither of them was going to concede any ground and let the other pay the full amount.

Waverly shrugs into a thick cardigan as soon as they make it outside, the heat of the day all but lost now the sun has disappeared. The streets possess the first stirrings of a Saturday night atmosphere, groups of people milling about from one place to another.

Beside Nicole, Waverly stifles a yawn. Her flight home is scheduled for early the next morning, and much as Nicole didn’t want the day to end, there could be no dragging out a ‘goodbye’ any longer.

She leads the way back and wordlessly, Waverly follows. It had only been a few glasses, but Nicole hasn’t had this much to drink in a while, and if she’s being honest the world feels a little frayed at the edges as they walk.

By the looks of things, Waverly is in a similar position. Despite the way she shivers into her wooly cardigan, the wine has brought a sweet pink tinge to her cheeks, and when she speaks her words are a little harder to distinguish. She walks close to Nicole - too close to be strictly necessary - and occasionally their arms and hands brush. It would be so easy, Nicole thinks, to reach out and take Waverly’s hand, so easy to thread their fingers together and brush her thumb over Waverly’s the way she really wants to.

It would also be inappropriate, a stern internal voice reminds her, and it’s an almost sobering thought.

They drift slowly along the canal, both enjoying the ambience and both dragging their feet to prolong their time together just a little longer. But the parting can only be delayed and not derailed altogether and all too soon Waverly’s hotel looms large in front of them.  

For perhaps the first time, things feel awkward as they slow to a stop and stand facing each other, unsure of what to say.

“Thank you for today,” Waverly says. “You didn’t have to take time out to show me the city, and I really appreciate it.”

“I didn’t have to but I wanted to, really.”

They grin at each other (probably absurdly, Nicole thinks).

“Well I had a great time. Seriously. The best day in,” Waverly thinks, hard and it sort of makes Nicole sad that the last good day is such a distant memory. “Well, I really can’t remember,” Waverly says, like she’s only just realising it for herself.

“Me too,” Nicole says, because it’s true. She hasn’t laughed so much, or felt such a sense of weightlessness in a long time. Nothing - friendship, a crush, _whatever_ \- has felt this right in a long, long while.

Waverly moves in for one of _those_ hugs again, the third in this short space of time, and Nicole’s arms come easily around her waist. Tipsy and swaying ever so slightly, they stay like that for long enough to make Nicole question again I every instinct she has about Waverly’s sexuality, and what she wants between them.

Waverly pulls back, but only by a foot or so, her arms still wound around Nicole’s shoulders. One hand moves to play with the short hair at the back of Nicole’s neck, and Nicole wonders briefly whether Waverly would be this bold without the drinks they’d shared.

She isn’t sure she herself would be this bold.

Nicole doesn’t want Waverly to do anything she wouldn’t normally want, but at the same time she cannot seem to unstick her throat to say so. She stands, frozen and breathless, too scared to move or question Waverly lest she break whatever spell is clearly at work here because this can’t be happening. This doesn’t happen, not to Nicole.

When Waverly kisses her, she leans in without hesitation, like she is being drawn by an invisible connection - like this was always going to happen.

The kiss starts out impossibly soft, Waverly’s lips ghosting against her own almost as though she is trying to breathe Nicole in. But after a moment she leans further into the kiss, lips firm as they move against Nicole’s. She tastes faintly of strawberries and chocolate from the dessert they’d shared earlier.

Nicole brings a gentle hand against Waverly’s cheek, almost feeling as though she needs an anchor, something to keep herself steady.

Breathless, they both take in soft, heady gasps against each other's lips and all Nicole knows is that this feels like flying.

She almost soars but then the spell is broken and Waverly jumps as if burned. She draws away almost as quickly as she’d leaned in, bringing a hand to her half-open mouth as she tries to catch her breath.

“I’m so sorry,” Waverly says, aghast. “God, that was so inappropriate of me. _Shit_. I’m - ”

“No, Waverly listen. _I’m_ s- ” Nicole’s heart is still racing but it no longer feels good. All she can think is that she shouldn’t have let this happen after all that wine; she shouldn’t have kissed back.

Waverly won't let Nicole speak, probably isn't really listening as she panics, starting a sentence before she even finishes the one before.

“I can't believe I just - I haven’t even broken up with - it wasn’t supposed to- ” Eventually, she takes a laboured breath, her eyes shining.

“I’m really sorry Nicole, I’ve buggered everything up. I should go, shouldn’t I?”

Before Nicole can ask her to wait, Waverly takes a wild step back and then another, and another. Nicole already knows once Waverly Earp has set her mind to an action she carries it through, and there’s little she can do to stop Waverly bolting for her hotel, the door giving an ugly slam behind her.

Nicole wants to go after her but to what end? She doesn’t know her room number and she can’t force another person to listen to her.

Sadly, slowly she turns away and heads for home. She walks to the apartment, even though it is getting cold and it takes her the best part of forty-five minutes. Her heel is burning by the time she finishes climbing up the stairs, and she shoves a packet of frozen vegetables against it as she flops down onto her bed.

In the depths of his room, her flatmate is playing video games at full volume, and she can hear at least two other voices mingled amongst the sound of shooting.

“Perfect,” she mutters gloomily to herself as she opens up her chat with Waverly. She types and erases a whole host of different messages from _I’m sorry_ to _it wasn’t your fault, it was mine_ to _I don’t want things to end like this_.

The banner at the top of the chat screen blinks from _‘last seen at 21:15_ ’ to ‘ _online_ ’ and Nicole’s heart jumps.

Waverly starts typing, but after a few minutes she stops and the top of the screen tells Nicole: _‘last seen at 21:52’_.

No message comes through.

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole holds on and she hopes against hope that Waverly will contact her again, but weeks pass by with nothing more than a single, hollow exchange. 

A few days after Waverly had left the city, Nicole had plucked up the courage to text her. She told herself that the worst that could happen was that Waverly ignored it, but at least she’d have tried.

The message is long as Nicole apologises and explains that Waverly did nothing wrong. She tries to assure her that nothing has changed, that she still wants to be friends but that she’ll understand if Waverly needs space. She sends it with her breath caught in her chest, and tries not to spend the rest of the day obsessively checking her phone.

In truth, she wouldn’t blame Waverly for being mad - Nicole had let her initiate the kiss, had kissed her back when they were both a little drunker than they’d care to admit.

A few hours later Waverly texts back, nothing more than: _“thank you for being so understanding. it means a lot_ ’.

Somehow, that feels worse than if they’d fought or if Waverly had ignored her altogether. This felt definitive somehow, like things were changed for good.

The problem was that life for Nicole is starting to move like a freight train and there is little for her to do but try to keep up.

As cut up as she is about the whole thing, she can’t let it get on top of her whilst she sits her final assessments and physicals. She’s worked too long and too hard to let her professional life take as much of a dive as her personal one.

The assessments give her something else to focus on, and when they are done interview preparation follows. As it turns out, being set to graduate at the top of your class gets you offers, and Nicole is floored to find herself in the position of potentially having to turn people down. She wishes she could show all the emails and letters to the iteration of her from a year ago, when she was insecure and wide-eyed and wondering if she’d even qualify at all.

She has interview offers in Ottawa, Montreal, and a few smaller principalities and it was time to really start deciding whether she was cut out for city or community policing.

It is bittersweet, because even though it is surreal to think that all of her dreams are finally within reach, had this happened a month earlier she would have been sharing this news with her family, with Shae, and also with Waverly.

It is only when they stop speaking that it really becomes clear how often they’d been in contact - they’d spoken every few days for work, and once they grew closer sent long texts at least a few times in addition.

Happy as she was in some ways, there was no way of escaping it: Nicole missed her.

She misses her so badly it was like a constant ache in her chest.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

**_xiii._ **

**_June 2017; Purgatory, Alberta_ **

 

 

It takes about a month, but Waverly gradually becomes accustomed to that constant anxious feeling in her stomach, the one that seems to exist just to remind her of just how badly she’d messed things up. 

The overwhelming feeling associated with getting drunk (well, drunk _ish_ ) and kissing Nicole Haught was embarrassment (well, that and the memory of how that one single kiss had lit up every nerve in her body).

But still, she was _mortified_.

She wonders how she must have looked to Nicole; tipsy on wine and tipsy on the atmosphere, throwing herself at Nicole while she still had a boyfriend back in Purgatory. Worst of all is the memory of how she completely freaked out and ran, rather than staying and talking things through like a goddamn adult.

Before they'd met in person Waverly had always thought, deep down, that Nicole was maybe, possibly, probably into girls. There had been a few phrases, she’d dropped a few hints, but more than anything when they met there was a look in her eyes that Waverly couldn’t really ignore. But even such a suspicion on Waverly’s part hadn’t been a decent enough reason to behave like a lovestruck teenager. True, she had wondered if Nicole had been flirting with her a few times, but she’d convinced herself it was just wishful thinking. And still, she’d gone and kissed her.

The toe-curling embarrassment of the whole thing is primarily why she hasn’t texted Nicole properly since; because Nicole had managed to be brave and magnanimous and mature, and Waverly had basically stumbled over her own feet on her way out of the situation. Afterwards, she hadn’t known what to say and now that nearly a month has passed, she’s not stupid enough to think she hasn’t left it much too late. And worse still, now Nicole has left the archive she doesn’t even get to speak to her about work.

(Then again, maybe it’s better - and significantly less awkward - that way).

The replacement isn’t a patch on Nicole, but how could they be in Waverly’s eyes?

Waverly knows when she’s messed up something really good, and all that’s really left for her to do is to get the rest of her shit well and truly in order. In fact, if her life were a movie then the past month would have been the montage two thirds of the way through, where the main character gets things back on track to the sound of a bouncy pop track.

She breaks up with Champ; that has to be priority number one. Even if she was unhappy before, she’d kissed someone else and not purely out of physical attraction. She’d liked - still does like - Nicole, and she’d wanted her over Champ; had wanted her exclusively. It was time to acknowledge that things were over.

She ends it like you rip off a band aid.

He comes round the night she returns to Purgatory as agreed, and she tells him right away that things are over. She doesn’t bother mentioning Nicole; she’d never tried to talk about liking girls with him, and it would probably only garner some crass joke anyway. She always thought if she did something like that - some kind of infidelity or betrayal - she’d tell the other person right away. At this point, though, she and Champ both know things had been falling apart for a while.

She can’t quite tell if she’s relieved or not when he barely questions the breakup, but she can’t help but think that a years-long relationship was over in less than five minutes and the fallout came with more of a whimper than a shout. The thought leaves her downcast, even if the ending itself feels right. It doesn’t feel like a waste per sé because she's learnt a lot just recently, but she knows as soon as it is over that if she had her time again she’d do things very differently.

The news travels round Purgatory even faster than Waverly could have anticipated, but when hasn’t gossip about the Earps spread like wildfire?

Some people are difficult, which Waverly expects. Champ’s friends give her a lot of stick for starters; but they dress it up as banter when Waverly half-objects, and effectively diminish her complaints amid a hail of beer-fuelled laughter. She ignores them, just like she ignores Stephanie Jones and Sonja Harper when she bumps into them at the drugstore a week later. Stephanie makes a snide remark about Waverly being too busy ignoring Champ and spending time with her ‘new’ friends to keep up with their old high school crowd (nevermind that she has known Jeremy and Rosita for years, and hasn’t actually seen them since before Ottawa).

Waverly swallows down a remark that, by now, she’d rather set herself on fire than spend more time than necessary with the kids who couldn’t look past her family’s name for the best part of her adolescent life. Most of the small number of kids Waverly’s age - Steph and Sonja included - had barely pretended to like Waverly until Champ had shown some interest in her.

Looking back now, Waverly hates how easily she played along with it all.

She placates Stephanie with a few sugary comments that leave her no room to bite back, before paying for razors and concealer so that she can leave. This is _her_ montage and she’ll damn well have it her way. She might not be in charge of much of her personal life at the moment, but she can at least command her own narrative going forward.

Other people, notably not amongst the residents of Purgatory, are much more supportive of her decision.

A little _too_ supportive, arguably.

Rosita whoops - literally, _whoops_ \- down the phone when she finds out. In her mind’s eye, Waverly imagines her friend punching the air with her free hand.

“Girl _finally_. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for this moment?”

“I mean, you’ve literally been telling me to do this for months so. Yeah.”

“Touché my friend, touché.” It’s clear from Rosita’s voice that she’s grinning, but when she picks up on Waverly’s mood her demeanour changes. “Shit, sorry. I’m being mega insensitive. You guys were together a long time, I know it must be hard but - ”

In spite of herself, Waverly laughs. “You can cut the crap, Rosie. I know you don’t mean it.”

“ _Hey_ , asshole. I care about you, just because I think Champ was a scumbag doesn’t mean I won’t worry about you.”

“Well I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Champ, so you don’t have to worry.”

The line crackles as Rosita exhales. “Oh thank _fuck_. I don’t know how much longer I could have kept that up.”

“You literally said one thing.”

“Yeah and it was the only thing I had up my sleeve. Anyway, whatever. What’s really up?” her voice softens and for the first time since Ottawa Waverly feels a flood of emotion thinking back at what happened. She tamps it down for now - even with Rosita she isn’t quite sure she’s ready to talk about it.

“It’s a long story.”

“If that’s code for: ‘I don’t want to talk about it’, then I got your back because I have some gossip for you. And if it really is a long story, then I also got your back because I am a free agent for the rest of the afternoon. I love not having any students to teach.”

The emotion is back, but it is different this time. Sometimes (all of the time), Waverly really loves Rosita.

“It’s code. I just messed something up. Really really bad Rosita.”

“Huh. See, that doesn’t sound quite right to me because I know you Waves and I know you don’t ‘ _just mess_ ’ shit up.”

Waverly gives a watery laugh. “Well this time I did.”

“The girl?” Rosita asks gently.

“Yeah,” Waverly replies, trying not to let her voice crack. “And please don’t say something lovely like ‘she doesn’t deserve you’ because it’s not true. It’s really not.”

“Well for what it’s worth I think you can sort things out. Just talk to her.”

“I think it’s gone too long for that. Anyway, I really don’t want to dwell on this. Tell me your gossip?”

“ _Oh_ , well,” Rosita begins, and Waverly knows from her tone that this will be good. “I think Jeremy might be seeing someone; he’s being all adorable and meme-like…”  

 

 

 

 

(The next time Waverly makes her way into Calgary to hang out with Jeremy and Rosita, they grab dinner and Jeremy tells them all about the guy he’s been texting. He looks happy and carefree when he talks about him and the dates they've shared. It makes Waverly’s heart swell for him. 

“We’re hanging out after this,” he tells them, “so he’s going to meet me here later. I sort of, uh, planned it that way. So you guys can all meet.” He looks nervous as he says it, so Waverly and Rosita react as enthusiastically as they can, both genuinely excited to meet whoever makes Jeremy smile like that.

Like Rosita, Jeremy rarely talks about his family. It’s yet another thing Waverly loves about her friends; none of them ever talk about their families, and even without words they all understand how much it hurts. Waverly knows the significance of what Jeremy is saying when he asks them to meet his boyfriend; it means he wants this guy to meet his family. The one he chose.

On the back of such a weighty confession, Waverly wants to reciprocate and she shyly tests the waters of her newfound identity. It’s not news to Rosita really, but she still gives a little cheer and slings her arm around Waverly for a quick hug.

“Welcome to the team dude!” she laughs, when Waverly tests the word ‘bisexual’ out on her tongue. She likes the way it feels.

If Jeremy is surprised, he hides it well and reacts pretty much as Waverly would have expected; by giving her a high five across the table and offering very little fanfare outside of that.

After they finish eating, it’s Jeremy’s turn to grow nervous, and Waverly’s turn to tip him a tiny thumbs up when a tall, handsome, well-spoken man offers his hand and a soft, gentle smile to both Waverly and Rosita in turn. If the dumb, dreamy look on Jeremy’s face is anything to go by, he and Perry are in it for the long haul and Waverly can’t think of anyone who deserves love more than him).

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a damn terrible cliché, but God if Waverly doesn’t dream about that kiss. Both literally and figuratively. 

She awakes in the middle of the night on more than one occasion, gasping for air, her body a circuit board lit up on the memory of how it feels to have Nicole Haught’s lips pressed against her own.

During the times he had been feeling particularly attentive, Champ had always been a good kisser (better at that by miles than most of the other stuff they used to do), but kissing Nicole was something Waverly could have in no way prepared for. Even weeks later, she still feels it almost down to her bones; like Nicole had poured some of her own soul into Waverly.

Nicole had been so impossibly soft and warm beneath Waverly’s lips and hands, and she had kissed back so gently it had been like a whisper, but it had still been enough to make Waverly’s knees weak.

Sometimes, even when awake, Waverly daydreams about it. Or about the way Nicole’s red hair had shone like burnished copper in the sunlight, or how she smelt like sweet vanilla. Sometimes she thinks about her kind brown eyes, or the way her smile made Waverly think of how the stars twinkle so brightly in the night sky, or how she’d propped her chin on Waverly’s head when they hugged.

It was as though the memory of her was tattooed permanently into Waverly’s skin and would never fully fade.

Deep down, Waverly knows she wants it to stay permanent.

 

 

 

 

 _> _ **_From:_ ** _Wynonna Earp [mailto:_ _bacondonut@hotmail.com_ _]  
__> _ **_Sent:_ ** _13 June 2017 14:19  
__> _ **_To:_ ** _Waverly Earp < _ _w_earp908@gmail.com_ _ >  
__> _ **_Subject:_ ** _RE: Wish you were here, nerdface.  
__> **Attachment** : _ _DSC20170603.jpg, DSC20170604.jpg_

 

 _Not to start an email by being all gross and out of character, but I don’t think I say enough how proud I am of my baby sister._  

_You’re absolutely killing it dude. What with your degrees and your big city seminars. Seriously, you’re so smart and you’re working hard and it’s gonna bring you everything you deserve._

_I’m not going to lie, I’m so happy you’ve finally dumped Champ. He wasn’t good enough for you (and as your big sister I am duty-bound to say that no one is, but especially not that assclown). Now you’re a free agent make sure you get yourself out there, see other people, have FUN!! You know? F U N. ;) ;) ;)_

_Not much to report with me as ever, I’m still in Greece for the timebeing. It’s not set in stone yet but I’m thinking of coming home for a bit. Not super soon, but maybe in time for my birthday, who knows. I’ll keep you posted._

_I miss you babygirl, and I love you (for always and no matter what, okay? I’m glad you told me)._

_God I hate being this disgusting. Um, you’re a nerd. You’re a nerd with a nerd face._

_OK, I think that’s better now._

_Talk to you soon._

_Wynonna x_

 

 

 

 

 

Waverly’s relationship status remains the subject of local conversation for longer than she imagined; much like the dating pool, good gossip was in short supply in Purgatory. Now that she’s seemingly available, more guys hit on her than she is strictly comfortable with; all of them kind of sleazy. Even if they weren’t such dudebros, she probably still would have turned them down. 

She’s still kind of moping about Nicole.

Half the dudes become predictable when she says ‘no’, switching from complimenting her to calling her a ‘stuck up bitch’ so fast she’s surprised they don’t get whiplash. It rolls off her back generally, but she’s still counting the days until they all find something else to focus on. Shifts at Shorty’s have become nigh-on unbearable.

Of all the people from this currently god-awful town, the list of people Waverly currently has time for is dramatically short, but Chrissy Nedley is pretty much at the top. Unlike Waverly, she had left Purgatory as soon as they graduated high school. She was easily as smart as Waverly, but this somehow got missed by most of their classmates. It wasn’t all that easy being the Sheriff’s daughter, especially when they all got to an age where they wanted to go to parties and drink beer. But then again Chrissy had always been good at going under the radar.

She went to college as far away as Toronto, getting a solid degree in Psychology and landing herself a high-flying HR job almost right away. She came back to Purgatory often though (her wage pretty much allowed her to do whatever she wanted), mostly to see her dad but also to reconnect with old friends. Well, one old friend in particular.

If, even years on, it could actually be said that she _needed_ to reconnect with Waverly. They never really seemed to lose touch. Even when they didn’t have much time to send messages back and forth, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Chrissy never left Purgatory without at least one lunch date with Waverly, and every time it was like they had never been apart.

“You okay Waves? You seem kind of down. You’re not hung up over Champ, are you?” she asks, stirring too much sugar into her coffee.

“Why does everyone think that?” Waverly grumbles, but without any real ill-feeling.

Chrissy shrugs. “It’s the obvious choice, I guess. You guys were together for ever.”

“I guess so. But no, I’m not. Not hung up at all, actually.”

“Good for you,” Chrissy smiles, crumpling up the sugar packets.

“Anyway, nothing’s wrong,” Waverly says, gunning for nonchalant with a dismissive brush of her hand. “It’s just personal stuff.”

“Personal stuff, huh?” Chrissy echoes. “It’s a damn shame you don’t have a friend who specifically wants to see you to discuss _personal stuff_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes. She is used to Waverly’s reticence after all their years of friendship.

Waverly takes a deep breath. “Okay. If I tell you something, will you promise to keep it a secret?”

Chrissy crosses her heart, just like they used to do as kids.

“And you won’t judge me, right?”

“Never ever Waves.”

“Okay. God how do I put this? So, I kind of met...someone. Before I broke up with Champ. And while I was away from Purgatory - at that seminar I told you about, remember? - we might have, um. We might have kissed.”

Chrissy feigns a gasp. “A kiss? A whole single kiss?”

“ _Shut it_ . Just because he was playing away doesn’t mean it was okay for me to do it, and besides it wasn’t fair on...the other person. No matter how much I like - uh, _liked_ \- them.”

“Damn, that sounds kind of serious Waverly.”

Waverly nods, creating a pause by blowing on her tea and taking a tentative sip before flinching slightly. It is still much too hot. She sets it carefully back down.

“It wasn’t like I knew tons about them. Which is why I think it scared me a bit. You know, having a few feelings.”

“So you stopped it? The kiss, I mean.”

“Yeah I sort of freaked out on them. I panicked.”

They’ve known each other almost too long by this point. Chrissy winces. “Please don’t tell me you made it awkward.”

“Awkward doesn’t even cover it. We haven’t really spoken since.”

“Ouch.”

“Right? I didn’t handle it well, I really think I’ve messed up big time.”

Chrissy hesitates for a moment, thinking. Then, suddenly, she says - 

“You know what I’ve always admired about you?”

The change of focus throws Waverly. “Wait, what?” she asks, puzzled.

“Something that I’ve always admired about you,” Chrissy repeats. “You’re so damn brave. You don’t even realise it, but you are. You always walked around school with your head held high no matter what the kids and half the parents said about you and Wynonna. You lost so much when you were young, and it was obvious you were suffering but you just kept on. You just kept going.

“I’m not half as brave as you are - no, don’t deny it, I’m not. I spent half of high school not standing up to people because I didn’t want to fall from grace. Anyway my point is, you’ve always been brave and gone out and worked for what you wanted.

“If you like this person, then I think you should go get them. They’d be a fool not to like you back and Lord knows you deserve it after everything with Champ. And just everything in general. Just be honest with them and if they don’t get it, then it’s not meant to be.”

Feeling teary but ridiculously empowered, Waverly can do little more than nod gratefully, but the advice strikes a chord with her. She smoothly changes the subject a while later, sick of feeling like she’s co-opting every conversation with her friends for herself. Chrissy catches her up on her job - _another_ promotion, just as she deserves - and the other aspects of her life; she has never really been one for dating, but she tells Waverly about her new flat and a few recent holidays.

It feels good to hear about her friend getting everything she deserves, and Waverly wants to string it out as much as possible, but Chrissy is catching the two o’clock bus and Waverly has to open Shorty’s as soon as possible. They push it as late as they possibly can before Waverly covers the check without giving Chrissy the chance to protest.

They part near the bar, Chrissy heading off to the station to say goodbye to her dad and collect her holdall.

Not really in the mood for a shift, Waverly unlocks the doors to Shorty’s and dumps her stuff haphazardly behind the bar.

She muses on Chrissy’s advice as she drifts around, giving the tables an extra clean and taking a few chairs down for something to do. She’s certain in that moment that she’s going to text Nicole after her shift, but what she’s actually going to say is beyond her.

She’s not concentrating properly as she wipes down the bar and taps, and in her haze she knocks one of the taps, drenching herself in cheap beer. She curses, loudly and with feeling, as she fumbles to shut the stream off and figures that this about sums up how the rest of the shift will probably pan out.  

She hears someone laugh from the doorway and can't think of anything she needs less than audience as her tank top clings to her and she drips beer onto the floor.

“Come work at Purgatory SD, they said. And to think, they’ve been trying to sweet talk me with good pay and insurance when they could have just told me their local bar had wet t-shirt competitions on Saturday afternoons.”

Waverly drops her cloth into the puddle growing at her feet and shoots down to pick it back up, cheeks on fire.  

A part of her wonders if it would be socially acceptable to remain crouched behind the bar.

“W-what are you doing here?” she asks when she stands back up. Ideally, Waverly would have played that a lot more smoothly, but instead she manages only a stammer a pitch higher than she’d have liked.

Nicole walks inside slowly, the swagger and sway of her hips doing a fairly credible job of hiding any insecurities. Her bright eyes were too honest for her own good, though, and they’d given her away more than once to Waverly. She was nervous.

“I, uh, wanted a cappuccino to go,” she jokes, although it comes across slightly unsure. Waverly, for her part, is glad to hide any real discussion under a haze of subterfuge for a moment longer.

“Oh I’m really sorry,” she says, gesturing at all the stacked up chairs, “we’re not actually open.”

Nicole bites back a grin. “ _Oh_ . My bad, it’s just that I swear _someone_ once promised me a coffee. And then assured me, an _officer_ of the law, that they didn't break their promises. Also your door was open.”

Waverly ducks her head, still blushing.

She doesn’t miss the way Nicole says the word ‘officer’, like she’s confirming the change.

“You qualified?” she says, excited for her. “Not that I ever doubted it for a second.”

“I did. Got my results just the other day.” Nicole's whole face glows with pride and Waverly thinks her own expression must be similar.

Waverly takes a deep breath; it can't be avoided any longer. “And now you're here. In Purgatory.” She keeps her voice even but hopes Nicole reads it as the question it is intended to be.

“And now I'm here,” she agrees. “I got an email from your Sheriff like, a couple of months ago offering me a position. I still don't know how he got my name or knew I was top of my class,” she says with a smirk that tells Waverly she is lying. “I guess someone must have mentioned it.”

Waverly’s eyes go wide, remembering the offhand comment she'd made to Nedley. She'd all but forgotten it. Did Nicole think…?

“Oh, I didn't- I wasn't trying to- I didn't realise he would get in touch.”

Nicole smiles at Waverly’s reaction. “How could you have? Truthfully, I didn't even realise until the day we, uh, met. I just thought it was strange that he’d found my name and gotten in touch. But then you told me, remember? About your home called Purgatory.

“I really wasn't sure if I should consider it, even before well, you know. But your Sheriff, he seems pretty determined to beat all the other offers.” Nicole looks a bit puzzled as she says this. “I don't really know why, actually.”

“I do,” Waverly mutters and it is meant to be under her breath but comes out loud enough for Nicole to hear, which fits in about right for day she's having. It's hard to tell who blushes harder.

“Look I hope it's not weird or creepy that I'm here. I would have ruled it out after that day, I know you probably don't want to see me, but Nedley keeps pushing. He's offered me great pay and he's more or less said that if I pass probation in six months he'll consider moving me straight to deputy and mentor me, almost. That...that doesn't happen Wave. I couldn't just dismiss it, so I agreed to meet in person.”

There is so much to unpack in what Nicole has said: the offer from Nedley that makes Waverly burst with pride, the assumption that Waverly wouldn't want to see her, that nickname so casually used. For a moment Waverly flounders, and doesn't know where to start.

Nicole speaks again before Waverly can formulate a proper response.

“I wondered if I should tell you in advance, was actually intending to before what happened but well - ” she trails off, looking unsure again.

“But I've been a complete jerk, not texted you properly, and screwed it all up,” Waverly adds with a grim smile. There was no point in dancing around the facts.

“You didn't. I shouldn't have -”

“What, let it happen?” Waverly interjects and Nicole nods. “I'm an adult too Nicole, and it was my action to take responsibility for, not yours.”

“True, but I sort of feel like - and God this'll be embarrassing if I'm wrong - but I sort of feel like this,” she gestures at herself very pointedly, “was new for you.” Nicole waits for Waverly to speak but when she doesn't Nicole adds, “and it's not new for me so. It wasn't fair of me.”

Waverly covers her face in hands, her skin now sticky with beer and still reeking to high heaven, and she groans.

“Was it really that obvious?”

“Not super, super obvious,” Nicole tries to reassure her. “I just had a hunch I guess?”

“I freaked out on you and didn't text for weeks, you don't have to be nice to me about this.”

Something in this makes Nicole’s face crumple and she reaches out across the bar to lay a hand over Waverly’s.

“ _Hey_. I’m not mad, okay? About any of this.” Her thumb skates across the back of Waverly’s hand, and it reignites every emotion she’d tried to bury recently. “You do actually deserve it, you know; people being nice to you.”

Waverly shuts her eyes for a brief moment, enjoying the feeling of her hand in Nicole’s. She hears Nicole take a deep, steadying breath, as though she is steeling herself for something.

“You do know I wanted to, right?” she asks, so quietly Waverly could almost have missed it. “I wanted to kiss you.”

Waverly’s eyes shoot open, and Nicole actually laughs at her shocked expression.

“You don't have to spare my feelings,” Nicole adds. “I was hopeless at hiding it. Particularly that one time I kissed you back and made you run away.”

Waverly knows Nicole is joking but after weeks of miscommunication, or just total non-communication, she doesn't want to leave any room for doubt.

“It wasn't that,” Waverly begins, trying to work out what she wants - no, _needs_ \- to say.

“I know,” Nicole says softly, her hand still on Waverly’s.

“No, I need to explain.”

“Waverly, it's okay.”

“I wanted to do things properly. There was all that wine, and God I was still with Champ then - ”

“ _Were_?” Nicole clarifies, raising an eyebrow. Waverly ignores her, or more aptly doesn't register the question.

“ - and I didn't even realise how _properly_ I wanted to do it until I messed it up so much.”

“Waverly.” Seeing that she is getting nowhere, Nicole finally lets go of Waverly’s hand and makes to move around the bar.

“And I didn't know for sure if you were interested or if it was just wishful thinking. And shit you're so right, this _is_ new to me and I don't know actually really know how to do this.”

“ _Waverly,_ ” Nicole tries again, coming to stand at the inside of the bar, just opposite Waverly. In the end it is the laughter in her voice that causes Waverly to pause.

Nicole is still smiling when she leans down and closes the small gap between them, lips feather-light at the corner of Waverly’s mouth.

“Is this okay?” she whispers, and Waverly doesn't trust herself to speak. Instead she turns her head infinitesimally to the right and what happens isn't so much an embrace as a release; the first gasp of fresh air when your face breaks the surface of the water.

Their lips meet in synchronicity and Nicole kisses, it turns out, like the tide kisses the shoreline - with surety, like this is the only thing she should be doing.

It kind of makes Waverly feel giddy and Nicole must realise as much, because she guides Waverly ever so gently backwards until her back hits the wood of the bar. The movement brings Nicole’s knee between Waverly’s and the contact is enough to draw a soft, breathy moan from the back of Waverly’s throat.

Nicole smiles against Waverly’s lips before leaning in for another kiss as she traces the tips of her fingers up the arch of Waverly’s cheekbone, her touch so light that Waverly shivers.

They make out - there’s no other word for it really - against the bar until a shout from the street outside makes them jolt apart. Or, as far apart as they can with their legs still twined, and Nicole braces herself on the bar behind Waverly. She can still feel the warmth of Nicole’s skin.

The commotion outside - just a group of guys shouting and laughing as they walk along the street - makes Waverly realises what she was doing, and where (namely, kissing Nicole in public). The thought still sort of makes Waverly a bit nervous given that she’s currently fuelling the Purgatory gossip mill, and she never really thought she’d lose control quite that easily.

Judging by the look on Nicole’s face, shell-shocked and tousled and starry-eyed, she feels the same.

“Yeah, so that was - ” Waverly says, never really intending to complete the sentence because she doesn’t really have an adjective to describe it.

“Right,” Nicole agrees.

They stand in awkward silence for a few moments before looking the other in the eye and bursting into laughter. It’s not funny, not really, but Nicole makes Waverly feel like she’s flying and if it’s even remotely possible that she makes Nicole feels the same, then that’s something to be loudly joyous about.

“How long are you staying?” she asks once they come down a bit, and the question makes Nicole’s expression shift ever so slightly.

“Just until tomorrow morning,” she says, searching Waverly’s face for a reaction.

She can’t help but let her face fall slightly. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”

It was another stolen moment, Waverly realises, another instance of them only having a day to themselves. But there is a question there, one of permanence, and she can’t keep the words from bursting out of her.

“But if you took the job?”

Nicole’s whole face bursts into a grin. “You’d want me to?”

Waverly thinks back to what Chrissy told had told her, barely an hour ago, and for the umpteenth time in her life, she is brave.

“ _Yes_ . Yes I do. I’m - I don’t know how to do this Nicole. It’s not even solely that you’re the first woman I’ve kissed. It’s that I dated the same boy since before I left school, and he never really even _saw_ me, you know? But you? You see me like no one else has. I feel like I’m stripped back to my nerves whenever I talk to you and it scares me. _You_ scare me. But yes. I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted before.”

And if there is something Waverly has learnt about Nicole over the last few months, it is that she gives. She gives from a very deep place in her soul, a soul that is far too old for her body.

“You know what scares _me_ ?” she asks and Waverly shakes her head. “I’m about set to go and move my whole life to, literally, the tiniest town I have ever been to in my life. And I’m not remotely scared, not if you’re gonna be here. And that? That total lack of hesitation _terrifies_ me Wave.”

It is just the right thing to say and, with a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure there are no prying eyes, Waverly leans in for another kiss. She wraps her arms around Nicole’s shoulders and draws her close, as though she could breathe her in completely if they could only stay in that moment forever.

Nicole breaks the kiss and presses their foreheads together.

“I’m starting to think I would have found my way to you in any life,” she murmurs.

Waverly thinks she’s probably right about that.

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole hangs around Shorty’s for most of the afternoon, idly reading through an information pack from Nedley while Waverly serves the regulars. She takes a seat at the bar and lets Waverly ply her with a constant supply of drinks, mostly caffeinated rather than alcoholic, throughout her shift. 

They share enough significant looks as Waverly sashays too and fro that it’s really a wonder no one notices, but they pass almost entirely under the radar. Or, as much as is possible when a total newcomer appears in a small town bar. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up too much, but Waverly allows herself a moment to picture what it would be like if Nicole took Nedley’s job offer. It was all too easy to imagine sharing bar shift time with Nicole as a regular fixture.

All the same, Waverly manages to sweet-talk Shorty into letting her leave an hour early, so all told they are effectively free agents by seven thirty.

“So?” Waverly asks as they meander the length of the main street, as diminutive as it is. She draws the word out a little too long, and Nicole smiles.

“So?” she asks.

“Does Nedley’s contract tempt you to stay in Purgatory?”

“It does,” Nicole admits and the playfully bumps in Waverly as they walk. “But there are _other_ things which tempt me more. And it’s not Shorty’s charming clientele.”

“Oh come on you only got hit on by two different guys, I’d consider that a huge win. And I know Skip tried like three different times but literally everyone in this town ignores him anyway.”

Nicole snorts but artfully changes the subject. “So what other delights does Purgatory have to offer on a Saturday evening?”

Waverly brings them to a halt outside the grocery store, opening the door for Nicole to pass through.

“Just need to get some supplies, then I'm going to show you,” she says, picking up a basket. “Let's see if I can't tempt you a little bit more.”

 

 

 

 

Two hours later and they find themselves lying flat on their backs in Waverly’s truck (well, Uncle Curtis’ truck), the remnants of an impromptu picnic scattered in one corner and Nicole's hoodie bundled up under their heads. _Cry To Me_ is playing out of Waverly’s phone and as dates go it's kind of perfect.

They're out in the ass-end of nowhere, so there's no chance of anyone disturbing them, and it's dark enough out of town that they can see the stars. The moon is large and looming overhead and the light it reflects is just enough to illuminate an outline of the Rockies in the distance.

Waverly, buried under a blanket she has doubled over, has her head nestled against Nicole's shoulder and, as they both stare skywards, she jokes -

“You, know I wouldn't let just anyone get me into a bed on the first date,” as she gestures around the truck bed before firing off over-exaggerated finger guns. 

Nicole groans. “How long have you been wanting to say that?”

“Since I thought of coming out here.”

Nicole chuckles, raking a languorous hand through Waverly’s long hair. She feels almost too relaxed and content to point out the obvious, but someone has to do it.

“It's the second.”

“Hmm?” Waverly questions, seemingly as chilled out as Nicole.

“The date. I think it's technically our second. Unless we're still pretending that the other day in Ottawa wasn't a date disguised as a platonic day out.”

“Fair point. Second date it is.” There is a smile in her voice as, under her breath she adds, “I still wouldn't let just anyone get me into a bed on the second date either.”

Nicole chuckles and bends to plant a kiss on the top of Waverly’s head. Waverly tilts up to meet her, giving Nicole a gentle peck on the lips that segues into something less chaste almost instinctually.

After a moment or two Waverly hums contentedly against Nicole's lips and breaks away, badly stifling a small yawn. Their moment in Shorty’s was nice but out here, beneath constellations and a waning moon, with no chance of any prying eyes it all felt practically perfect. There isn't a time Waverly can remember when she felt so at ease.

She doesn’t want to part again after such a short amount of time, but when Nicole takes her own turn to yawn, Waverly has to acknowledge that maybe it's time to go.

She broaches the subject and with a resigned sigh Nicole agrees. Slowly they pack up their things, which takes them much longer than strictly necessary because they keep stopping to dust kisses on the other's cheeks, lips, jaw. In fact, Waverly is starting to notice that she finds it hard _not_ to touch Nicole; even if it is just to brush their hands together or to tuck a stray strand of red hair behind her ear. She thinks it has something to do with the way Nicole keeps flashing her this dreamy look and beaming grin, even as Waverly drives them back to town.

At one point, she catches such a deep look on Nicole's face that she feels physically compelled to pull the truck over and kiss her until they're both breathless.

But then all too soon Nicole is at her guest house and insistent that her bus into Calgary is too early for Waverly to come and see her off in the morning. This time they kiss goodbye and when Waverly has parked her jeep and walked home there is a text goodnight waiting for her from Nicole.

It feels nice, at least to leave her on better terms and with a sense of optimism in her chest, but she feels the parting no less acutely.

It weighs heavy on her chest, pressing down like it could suffocate her if she isn't careful, or if something doesn't give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, thank you so much for reading! If you have a moment to leave a comment then it really would be wholeheartedly appreciated as this turned into quite and undertaking and your feedback gives me life. 
> 
> Thank you to Laura and our discussions on the truck date headcanon, along with the generous permission to co opt it for this fic.
> 
> Thank you too to Anja, for allowing me to steal her laptop to post this update whilst here in Berlin!
> 
> I should think the final part will be up in about a week's time, in the meantime if you want to chat about wayhaught fluff come find me on twitter as angiemartineIIi


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! 
> 
> So this chapter concludes this fic - and I hope you all find it a satisfying ending! It's a significantly shorter piece than the past three chapters, just sitting around 3k. It's really just a way to tie everything up and hopefully give these two a conclusion we're hopefully all happy with. And tbh posting it now is just my way of trying to beat the post-earpercon blues a bit!! 
> 
> As ever, I hope you enjoy what I've written and there's more to follow in the notes at the end.

**_xiv._ **

**_July 2017; Purgatory, Alberta_ **

 

 

Nicole's achilles is grumbling at her to take things a bit easy as she lugs the last over-stuffed cardboard box through the door. She wipes a hand across the back of her neck where it feels damp in the humid air, trying to stop her hair sticking uncomfortably to her skin.

Since getting things shipped cost a bomb, she had restricted herself to only five boxes plus her suitcase for clothes, but it's possible she had been a bit overambitious about what she could fit in each. It's a miracle the bottoms of the boxes are intact.

She wasn't especially attached to much of her material stuff, but as she'd amassed the basic home necessities already, there didn't seem much point in buying them all over again. She'd need to buy bedding and towels and all manner of soft furnishings, but generally she wasn't fussy so long as she had a place of her own to call home.

More important than almost any other object in the room by far is the small carrier lying empty in the corner. Its inhabitant is currently prowling the perimeter, still looking slightly unsure of its new surroundings.

After all that time in her pet-free Ottawa apartment, Nicole’s very first proper purchase (in anticipation of her very first paycheck as a qualified officer) was always going to be a rescue cat. Well, first purchase outside of her plane ticket, of course.

She'd found the cat listed online at a nearby rescue center and, via some photos and videos, had fallen in love instantly. She'd asked them to reserve the cat for her and, given that her background check involved ‘is a police officer’, she was deemed a responsible owner.

In person, she wasn't quite sure that this cat wasn't going to be kind of a handful, but it didn't really change her feelings on her new and improved roommate.

Nicole gives herself a moment's rest, flexing her foot to try and loosen it up a bit. She watches as the cat gradually grows bolder, launching herself gracefully towards a better vantage point in the form of one of Nicole’s boxes. She proceeds to smartly fall into it as she lands, the flimsy packing tape giving way beneath her. The cat gives a yowl and Nicole can't help but laugh, until the disheveled cat emerges and throws her the dirtiest look she's ever seen, before climbing - or probably more accurately - falling out the box again.

“I guess that settles one question,” Nicole says aloud, still chortling. “Doesn't it,  _ Calamity Jane _ ?”

She had been searching for the right name for the cat since her ownership was confirmed, but within half an hour in her new home, Calamity Jane had all but named herself.

“Okay,” Nicole continues, still aloud and directed at the cat. “Try and behave yourself because I have to try and get this place nice for Waverly. She's coming round after she finishes at the bar in like an hour and I don't want it looking like a bomb’s hit it.”

Granted, it was a tall ask given that the place was only part-furnished and Nicole didn't even have a couch yet, but she could at least pile the boxes neatly and get her clothes in the built in wardrobe in the bedroom.

Waverly had said she'd borrow Curtis’ truck and drive them both out to the nearest IKEA in the morning for all the flatpack essentials.

Calamity Jane mewls softly at the sound of Nicole's voice and Nicole agrees.

“Yeah, you'll like her.”

Another meow.

“I know I sure do.  _ A lot.  _ She’s so smart and funny and cute and I can't believe she actually wants to date me.”

This seems to lose Calamity’s interest and she stalks off to investigate the kitchen.

“Fine, then,” Nicole mutters before dragging the box Calamity Jane had opened to the center of the room and rifling through it. Impossibly, her plants and heavily-packaged pots had survived, and they became the first things to be unpacked in her new home.

Getting a place of her own had been the subject of a lot of back and forth between her and Waverly, mostly heavily coded since neither really knew if they should mention that Waverly technically had a perfectly good flat already. In the end, over video chat one night, Nicole relieves them both by telling Waverly she'd found a pretty reasonably-priced house that she liked and could definitely afford on the money Nedley had offered her. She'd been looking at flats, but rent was dead money and she had enough for a deposit squirreled away in the form of one sizeable Vegas win, and an inheritance from long-deceased grandparents and a distant, childless great aunt.

It wasn't that Nicole didn't really like Waverly, because she had made it fairly obvious that she did (what with moving thousands of miles to be with her and all), but the relationship was a new and soft-skinned thing. Living together was big and bruises were easy things to come by; they needed to take things one step at a time. There was still so much to learn about Waverly and so much to tell Waverly about herself (big things and little things and scary things all come to mind at once).

Plus, she knows that Waverly kind of hates living above the bar and the implication is sort of that when they're ready (because in Nicole's mind it's not a question of ‘if'), then they will have a proper home with all the furnishings waiting and ready for them.

And if, as Nicole suspects, Waverly one day wants to spread her wings and see what else is out there in the big wide world, then Nicole is pretty sure she'd up sticks and start again at the end of the earth if Waverly will have her.

She is explaining most of this to Calamity Jane, when a sound behind her nearly sends Nicole through the roof (and  _ Jesus  _ she's meant to be a qualified cop now).

“Knock knock?” Waverly says sheepishly, a blush just visible on her neck and collar. She has two iced coffees - one in each hand - and had obviously squeezed in where Nicole had kept a box propping the front door open to get a bit of air into the stuffy house.

“I thought you might have heard the truck on the gravel,” she explains, setting the cups down on a windowsill. Nicole wants to ask how much of that she heard, but it's already pretty clear. Still, Waverly looks like she has stars in her eyes and Nicole thinks it probably went down okay. She gets up from her position on the floor to greet Waverly properly.

“Anyway,” Waverly says, biting back a huge grin. “Hey you,” she says taking a step forward and meeting Nicole in an embrace.

“Hey yourself,” Nicole whispers, kissing Waverly’s temple and cheek and lips the way she has wanted to since their last time together. It still hasn't quite registered that she can do this, that it is allowed and, in fact, encouraged. Waverly kisses her back, earnest and enthusiastic, before an attention-seeking meow draws their attention to the the floor where Calamity Jane is currently staring up at Waverly. The cat winds herself between Nicole's feet, her eyes fixed on Waverly.

“Haven't you had her like four hours?” Waverly asks, nervously surveying the slightly possessive look on Calamity’s alarmingly expressive face.

“Huh. Yeah, and one of those was in her carrier in the car.” Nicole notes the slightly tight look on Waverly’s face, as though the approval of Nicole's new cat is something she's placing a great deal of stock in.

Planting another kiss on Waverly’s hairline, Nicole smiles and extricates herself from both Waverly and Calamity, stepping away to gratefully collect her coffee.

“Don't worry,” she adds, “give it an hour or two and I'm sure she’ll love - uh,  _ like _ \- you as much as I do.” Nicole winces at the slip - it's much, much too soon for that kind of talk - but Waverly just steps behind her and loops her arms around Nicole's waist, hugging tightly.

It's something she's learning more and more, that Waverly gives affection so deeply and freely, and already Nicole loves that about her.

“I hope so,” Waverly agrees, voice muffled as she presses her cheek flat against Nicole's shoulder.

“I know so,” Nicole assures her, enjoying the feel of Waverly’s soft breathing against her back.

They eventually drink their coffees sat on the floor, Nicole coaxing Calamity Jane to come over to them. Calamity eventually butts her head again Waverly’s hand. Nicole tells Waverly about her journey over, and fills her in on Calamity’s earlier escapades.

“It doesn't feel real that you're here,” Waverly says apropos of nothing, letting Calamity bat her paws at the tassle on her bag. “I mean, it sort of didn't feel real last time either but that's because it was so unexpected. But this time you're here in this house and it's permanent.”

It was actually Waverly who had seen the house in person first. Once Nicole had mentioned the online listing, Waverly had offered to book a viewing so that she could take pictures for Nicole and offer her own opinion. It was helpful to have Waverly’s take on the place rather than the estate agent's doctored pictures. Nicole can imagine how extra strange it must feel now for her.

“It's a good kind of strange though, right?” Nicole checks, feeling slightly unsure for the first time.

“The  _ best _ kind,” Waverly replies without a moment's hesitation.

 

 

 

 

 

They potter about until dinnertime, unpacking what they can and trying to decide the best way to lay out the ground floor once there's furniture available. Waverly seems to have a better eye for interior design than Nicole, who isn't too fussy so long as the place feels cosy, so she lets Waverly’s creative vision take over.

They're interrupted once, when Nicole's mom rings to ask how the moving is going. She hasn't actually told them about Waverly yet, and it had taken some explaining when she told her family where she was moving after graduation. Luckily, Nedley’s enthusiasm goes a long way to assuaging her mom’s concerns, and Waverly seems to understand that Nicole is choosing her moment.

(After all, “mom, I'm a lesbian” is one thing, but “mom I'm a lesbian, and I'm moving halfway across the country to be with a girl I met over email because I love her and have never been more certain of anything in my life”, is another thing entirely. She is ready to come out to her mom now, even kind of excited just to finally get it all out there, but she needs to work out her plan of action).

Because if Nicole had thought she was certain about becoming a cop (and Lord, she was), then it was nothing compared to how she felt about Waverly Earp.

When Nicole has ended the conversation and they've unpacked all her clothes, Waverly’s stomach gives a grumble and they acknowledge that it's time to call it a day.

For all they've discussed not moving in together in Waverly’s apartment straight away, Nicole has little choice but to stay there until she buys and assembles a bed tomorrow.

Well, in truth she could have booked a room somewhere, but it is never once discussed between them and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't thinking about the exhilarating notion of spending the night with Waverly in the most PG way possible: vegan tacos, popcorn, movies, and a lot of napping. Oh and making out, definitely the making out. (Okay, so maybe not totally PG).

She packs overnight things for herself and Calamity Jane, negotiating with her to get her back in her carrier, and Waverly drives them the short way into town.

They make quite a trio, traipsing through Shorty’s and up to Waverly’s apartment, but Waverly doesn't even seem to notice the way one group of guys is particularly vocal as they pass by.

“Ex’s friends,” she tells Nicole with a delicate, disinterested shrug as she locks the door behind them. Nicole hopes that the gesture means that they're both prepared to be at least partly blasé about whatever this town is going to throw at them when people find out they are dating.

After letting Calamity Jane out and receiving a very quick tour from Waverly (the place was cute but compact which, when Nicole thinks of it, suits Waverly pretty well), they set about cooking dinner. It's all unassumingly domestic but it sends Nicole's heart soaring, moving about the tiny kitchenette with Waverly in her short suede skirt and incongruous fluffy pink slipper socks. Twice she uses them to skate across the tiles on the floor, zooming gently into Nicole's side to wind her arms around her.

They open two bottles of beer as they eat on the couch, feet propped against the coffee table so they can balance their plates on their legs. It leads Nicole to make a mental note that any romantic candlelit dinners will probably have to take place at hers.

Waverly chatters about their day tomorrow, planning to drive them into the city first thing, where she needs to quickly stop by the university before she has plans for a lunch date that basically involves Nicole meeting her friends; Rosita, Jeremy, and Jeremy’s boyfriend apparently. It sort of makes Nicole equal parts nervous and excited, but, well -

“If my natural wit and charm improbably fail, I'm going to fall back on the old ‘hey Rosita, I'm Nicole, remember that time Waverly told me instead of you all about how terrible her ex-boyfriend was?!’”

“ _ Hey _ . Bully.” Waverly pouts and shoves Nicole so hard she nearly drops her empty plate on the floor. “If I wash these plates while you go take that shower you were saying you were so desperate for earlier, will you promise not to gang up on me with my asshole friends tomorrow?”

“Sounds like a fair deal. But also I'll help, it'll be quicker that way.”

Waverly shakes her head, “it'll take like two seconds since we cleared up as we went along. I showered after my shift so that way we'll be ready for bed at the same time. I downloaded  _ Zootopia _ !”

This makes Nicole laugh. “Hmm I wonder why?”

“Brave and caring young bun, graduates top of her class at the Academy, goes to the big city to become a cop and single-handedly make the world a better place? I don't know,” Waverly jokes, eyes shining as she looks up at Nicole.

“Plus I'll bet anything that you think that Shakira song is a bop.”

Waverly pulls an offended face. “Um, that's  _ Gazelle _ , you heathen? Learn some culture?”

For about the hundredth time that day Nicole laughs. She won't tell Waverly tonight (later, maybe) but she doesn't actually especially care for the animal Disney movies as much (except for  _ Aristocats  _ and  _ The Lion King  _ \- those are just sacred), but with the enthusiasm written all over Waverly’s face, she suspects  _ Zootopia  _ is about to become her new favourite movie.

“Okay, so I guess I should hurry up and get off the couch so we can start the movie?”

Waverly nods enthusiastically by way of reply, and Nicole drops a tiny kiss to the tip of her nose before handing her plate over and heading to the bathroom.

“Sure you don't want a hand?”

Waverly shakes her head to herself. “Will you hurry up and shower already?!”

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
When she gets out the shower, Waverly is already laying on the bed in sleep shorts and what appears to be a spare Academy shirt of Nicole's. 

“Um, did you steal that from my suitcase?” she asks, trying to be stern.

“Maybe,” Waverly replies, stringing out the ‘a’ and flashing a winning, toothy grin. Still, she checks it's alright that did she so, and Nicole plays it as nonchalant as possible because seeing Waverly in her shirt is actually really,  _ really  _ nice in a not entirely chaste way.

Waverly has the popcorn ready and Calamity Jane has already somehow wormed her way into getting a spot at the foot of the bed. This in spite of Waverly assuring Nicole very firmly that pets in the bedroom was not an option when Nicole had first pitched the idea of getting a cat.

Nicole quirks an eyebrow pointedly at the cat as she and Waverly cuddle up on top of the duvet, as even Waverly agrees that it is too warm for any blankets.

“Don't look at me like that. I tried to shut her out but she meowed and, well -” Waverly gives a slightly wild shrug.

“She meowed?”

“Yeah?”

“Waves she's a cat, it's what she does!”

Waverly hits her with one of the many scatter cushions from her bed.

“Don't,” another hit, “be so,” hit, “mean to me!” a final thump on her face. “I'm gonna chuck you out otherwise!”

Nicole wrestles back and on paper it should be an easy match given her training, but Nicole wasn't underestimating her opponent. Waverly, she had learned over the past few months, was strong in more ways than one.

In the end they are both winners because their grudge match ends with Waverly beneath her, trying to pin Nicole by hooking a leg over Nicole's hip and when their bodies collide it elicits a different reaction entirely.

They do eventually manage to start the film, but miss a great deal of it because Nicole finds it increasingly difficult to  _ not _ kiss Waverly in as many places as she can.

She lets Waverly set the pace, had decided a long time ago that she always would, and she practically loses it when Waverly shyly snakes a hand up Nicole's shirt, palm skating over the plane of her stomach, up and up, and they both gasp when Waverly’s cool fingers find Nicole’s bare breast.

Waverly bites her lip tentatively but when she sees the look on Nicole's face, the expression slides into something much more cunning.

If this is how it feels now - the closeness, both physical and emotional - when there is still so much more knowing and seeing and touching and loving to do, Nicole wonders just how much  _ more  _ she can possibly feel before she floats away entirely.

And when the movie and the popcorn is finished and the  _ exploring _ is over (for now), Waverly arranges them on their sides so that Nicole is curled around her. Sleep comes easily with Waverly so soft and warm and pliant against her, but Nicole fights it until Waverly’s breathing evens out first.

All Nicole knows when she finally drifts off is that Waverly’s hair still smells of coconuts, that she snores ever so softly when she sleeps and that, in the morning, the sun will rise and Waverly will be there still. And they will have all the time in the world to learn how to fly together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's all for now folks! I really hope you've enjoyed reading this story, it's been quite a journey getting back into fanfiction after a fairly long hiatus. I'd told myself I might not write any more fics once this was was wrapped up but I may have had a headcanon discussion which planted another au seed so, who knows. (Not me, genuinely. But if you do want to read more, lmk as there's a much higher chance I'll somehow make time somewhere to write fanfic if I know there's any call to read more of the sickening fluff I seem to churn out these days!) 
> 
> Similarly, if there's anything you'd want to see written for these guys feel free to let me know in the comments. I'm not really in a position where I can take requests per se or make any promises, but if I see something which jumps out at me I may just give it a go and will credit your idea/let you know I've put something together. If you'd prefer to communicate on twitter/you want to see some truly awful earpercon photos, I remain on [angiemartineIIi](https://twitter.com/angiemartineIIi). 
> 
> Big shoutout too once again to Laura for allowing me to put some of our headcanon discussions into what I write - most notably in this chapter the hc that Nicole talks to Jane about Waverly and gets caught (on more than one occasion) by Waverly herself, and that Nicole isn't really all that into animal Disney films despite my absolute conviction that Waverly _would_ rent Zootopia for them to watch one night. 
> 
> Finally and very importantly - I want to say thank you to everyone who's read, left kudos, and/or a review. In particular, reading your feedback has really blown me away and I'm always more appreciative than I can say to those of you who take the time to leave a kudos/comment on what worked/didn't/what you'd like to see. You guys seriously rock and now the fic is finished I'm going to find some time to get some replies up. Much love and maybe see you guys next time!

**Author's Note:**

> So it's worth saying that this fic goes against every instinct in my body, in that I have fudged so many details just to fit the overarching AU I wanted to write. Normally this would bother me a lot but I'm highly enjoying writing this cliched mess, and I hope you’ll forgive some of the vagaries I’ve let slip all in the name of fluff. The main issues are: 1) I got my degrees in the UK and have absolutely no idea how the Canadian education system works although I have tried to do a little research and 2) although I did a lot of looking into how to become a police officer in Canada, there were so many varying paths that it all went over my head a bit. I’ve therefore taken inspiration from all of the processes I found out about, as well as a couple of locations, but I’ve borrowed the name of an actual college for my entirely made up (wrong) police academy/training process. Again, it’s all in the name of fluffy au, so I hope it’s not too incongruous.
> 
> Similarly, Nicole and Waverly really have to be the same age for this fic to work even though I’ve been headcanoning a three or four-year age gap, and they have to be older in this fic than the show has Waverly atm (21/22). So I’m just going ahead and pretending they’re both somewhere around the age I headcanon Nicole to be, which is about 26/27. It’s still a stretch, but hopefully not too much so. Also although it's obvious I'm sure, in this universe Rosita is not a revenant and Jeremy is not yet a part of BBD.
> 
> Very huge shoutout to Anja and Laura for reading through bits of this, and also just a general thanks if you've stuck through to this point! The next update should be fairly soon, assuming of course that anybody wishes to read on!


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